The value of money in Jane Austen’s world

I can’t vouch for the accuracy of this, but I suspect it is pretty high.  It is from one source: “For Love or Money” by Louis Menand in the New Yorker, October 5 2020.  I trust both the author and the journal so I’m going with it.

These figures are valid for most of the nineteenth century, when there was almost no inflation.

The average annual income in Britain was £30.  

Farmworkers’ annual income around £20/year

Men working in paper mills could make about £60/year

Women workers of course were paid much less.  The typical salary for a governess {{Catherine Joy?}} was £30

Poorhouse occupants had to subsist on £6 10 shillings a year, paid from parish taxes.

To have £10,000 was to have a fortune, just.  £10,000 invested in government bonds with an interest rate of 5% produced an income of £500/year.  With no dependents you could live comfortably on this and would not need to work.  With income of £1,000/year you could afford a staff of 3 female servants, a coachman, a footman, carriage and horses.

The top 10% of households in Britain owned 85% of the national wealth, the top 1% owned 55%.  The bottom half of households owned nothing.  (Today in the USA the top 10% own about 70%, the top 1% more than 30%, and the bottom half less than 2%).