I think I certainly don't deny life was very hard for many people in this time period. The idea of using standard living or real wages is an attempt to get some objective measure that is somewhat cross a wide part of the population. Why did immigrants come to the United States? It was horrible on the surface. My contention would be maybe it wasn't as bad as it looks to us today. But more importantly, maybe they thought there was a future for their children and grandchildren.