The debate over the economic impact of the Old Poor Law on the agricultural labor market has been paralleled by a debate over the economic consequences of the Poor Law Amendment Act. However, although the issues to be explained are similar, the number of participants in the latter debate has been surprisingly small. The purpose of this chapter is to determine how farmers and laborers responded to the abolition of outdoor relief in 1834.

The traditional literature maintained that the system of outdoor relief reduced laborers' wages and farmers' profits in the long run, and that its abolition raised laborers' living standards. According to the 1834 Report of the Royal Poor Law Commission, the system of outdoor relief enabled farmers “to reduce wages to the minimum, or even below the minimum of what would support an unmarried man,” but it also reduced labor's productivity by so much that “the farmer finds that pauper labour is dear, whatever be its price” (Royal Commission 1834: 59, 71). The report predicted that the abolition of outdoor relief would eliminate unemployment, increase labor productivity, increase “the return to the farmers' capital[, and thus] induce the capitalist to give better wages” (1834: 329).

My conclusion that outdoor relief did not have a negative effect on farmers' profits or laborers' living standards implies that the traditional analysis of the economic impact of the Poor Law Amendment Act needs to be revised. The abolition of outdoor relief did not have a positive effect on living standards.