How much did the average household have to live on?

Question: How much did the average household have to live on!?

In the 1930's what would be the equivalent today!?

Appreciate your answers!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:

I started work in 1978 and earned ￡27 a week which was considered to be a pretty good wage for a college leaver, but I'd studied to be a legal secretary so was in demand at the time!. So it would seem that the 1930s would have been considerably less than that!.

I also know that my father who had a highly skilled job as a crop inspector when he married my mum back in 1954 took on a ￡200 mortgage to have a bungalow built and apparently he was terrified at the time that he wouldn't be able to pay it back each month!

From Googling 'average wage 1930s' it seems that it would have been somewhere around ￡1-￡2!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

A 1931 UK survey found 10!.6 per cent of workers earned ￡3!.5s per week or more (Ref 1) but this was in London where average wages were higher than the rest of the UK The largest category of workers shown in the schedules were labourers earning ￡2!.18s!.9p per week
(ibid) - remember this was a wage when a worker was in work!. A lot of workers would experience sporadic, or even extended periods of unemployment!. - At its peak 20% of workers in northern Britain were jobless and had to rely on Unemployment benefits payable for 26 weeks @ 17/-!. (Seventeen shillings) Then ‘Transitional relief’ provided by Public Assistance Committees takes over with means tested benifit!. Own a anything more than the clothes (rags often) you standn up in!? the means test man will expect you to sell it before he hands over your pittance!. During the 1930s the government -cut- these benifits (Ref 3) by 1932, 35% of miners were unemployed, as were 31% of textile workers, 48% of steelworkers and 62% shipbuilding workers!. (ref 4)

The average U!.S!.salary in the 1930s was $1,368/year (Ref 2) the ref also gives some prices of food in the USA at this time Www@QuestionHome@Com

My grandfather had a skilled job in a shipyard before the war, and he took home less than ￡4 a week!.
Mind you, you could buy a flat for ￡500!.

As for ￡120 a week - you're joking !

My first wage was only ￡48 a week, and that was 1983 !Www@QuestionHome@Com

about ￡3 a week for the average manual worker, clerical about ￡3,10 shillings a week, upper management about ￡12 week Www@QuestionHome@Com

My first job was in 1965 and I earned ￡7 per week and six pounds fifteen shillings of that went into the household budget!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

$2,000 year!. now 60,000Www@QuestionHome@Com

￡5!.0s!.0d a week
Www@QuestionHome@Com

￡120 a weekWww@QuestionHome@Com

$120 sounds right!. that can't buy much nowWww@QuestionHome@Com

like 90 dollars a weekWww@QuestionHome@Com