Working Class Debt in the Late Nineteenth Century United States

Abstract

Children's wages played a central role in family economic strategies in the late nineteenth century. The family budgets collected by the U.S. Commissioner of Labor in 1889-1890 show that life-cycle patterns of savings and debt varied by industry depending upon incomes from children. The consumption patterns of families whose expenditures exceeded their incomes do not show signs of economic distress, and most families whose annual budget was in deficit could expect larger contributions from children in the near future. These patterns suggest that families used borrowing and saving to smooth consumption over the life-cycle as the earning capacity of the family changed.