This chart shows the average daily wage rate for a skilled and an unskilled worker in the Toronto building trades. Although absolute wages rose rapidly in the first decade of the twentieth century, workers still were falling behind since prices rose even more quickly. Canada's leading statistician of the time, R.H. Coats, summed up the workers' situation in 1915:
Though the adjustment of wage scales has been continuous, the persistent nature of the rise (in prices) has rendered such adjustments obsolescent almost as soon as made. Even when workers' wages rise, it is not necessarily the case that their standard of living is improving.
