The growing numbers of unemployed and underemployed reduced the wages that employers had to pay. The growing population also bid up the costs of food and housing. The double squeeze cut real wages in half between 1500 and 1650, depressing the already bleak living conditions of the poor. Growing numbers depended upon public relief funded by “poor rates” levied on propertied people. Although inadequate to provide even a basic subsistence to the numerous poor, the rates seemed oppressive to taxpayers.
