Index of agricultural wages in the United States 1818-1948

Agricultural wages the U.S. in 1948 were almost 10 times higher than those in 1818. Wages fluctuated throughout the 19^th century, with a notable dip in the 1870s - factors such as technological improvements, high interest rates, and international competition saw productivity increase, but this led to the crop price per unit falling, driving wages down as smaller farms struggled to compete with larger landowners. Wages then rose during the 1910s, as the agricultural sector boomed due to the demands of the First World War. The post-war recession then created a farming crisis in the early 1920s, but there was some recovery by the end of the decade. Agriculture was then the hardest hit sector of the economy during the Great Depression in the 1930s, before New Deal reforms and the onset of the Second World War helped re-stabilize the industry from the mid-1930s onward, and wages rose rapidly thereafter.