Study title

This collection of wage data was published in „Die Geschichte der Lage der Arbeiter in Deutschland von 1789 bis in die Gegenwart“ by Jürgen Kuczynski (volume I and volume II, here quoted after 6th edition, Berlin 1953, 1954). The data contains wage indices of a certain base year and the corresponding wage raw data (hourly wages, weekly wages, annual wages in marks and pfennigs). The wage data is regionally widely spread until the year 1914; it contains single cities as well as bigger regional units. Since 1924 Kuczynski’s surveys rely on the publications of the statistical office. The wage data is ordered by professional groups, industry and agriculture and by certain industrial sectors. Kuczynski’s wage index is mainly based on publications of trade unions and on reports of different chambers of commerce. The weaknesses of the indices are due to the methodological inconsequence and the limited representative status concerning the election of geographical units. Union wages and also actually paid wages are considered in the calculations, like for example daily, weekly and annual wages or layer wages for miners. On the other side important industrial sectors such as the food or the textile sector are not taken into account. Wage data for agriculture relies often on estimations or is calculated with insufficient material. Wages for work at home are not taken into account in the index calculation. There are also problems with the representative status of the index regarding regional units because cities are weighted too important compared with rural regions. Another topic of the survey is the construction of an index of costs of living. For a long time Kuczynski’s index for costs of living was without any concurrence. It was used by different authors without any changes or modifications. The substantial weakness of the index is that for the calculation of the development of the costs of living, it only takes costs of food and rent into account. Prices of food and...