Wizarding Money and Social Status

[Charming]

The Worth of a Galleon

29 knuts = 1 sickle
17 sickles = 1 galleon
493 knuts = 1 galleon

1 knut = £.01 or $.02
£.01 or $.02 in 1882 = £.28 or $.45 now

1 sickle = £.29 or $.59
£.29 or $.59 in 1882 = £8.25 or $13.16 now

1 galleon = £5 or $10.07
£5 or $10.07 in 1882 = £140.75 or $224.60 now

10 galleons = £50 or $100.70
£50 or $100.70 in 1882 = £1408.33 or $2246.01 now

The Value of Work

• PAY LEVEL ONE: 20g weekly
  High-level Ministry: Minister, Chief Warlock
  
  PAY LEVEL TWO: 13g - 17g weekly
  Mid-Level Ministry: Department Heads (high), Assistant heads & committee members (low)
  Hospital Director
  
  PAY LEVEL THREE: 9g - 13g weekly
  Lower-Mid-Level Ministry: Squad/Division Heads
  Hospital: Healers-in-Charge
  Quite Successful Shop Owners
  Head Librarian
  Museum Director
  
  PAY LEVEL FOUR: 6g - 9g weekly
  Ministry Professionals: Regular departmental workers; Aurors; upper-level assistants; token payment for Wizengamot members who wouldn't need a pay anyways
  Healers (high end)
  Head Mediwizard (low end)
  Prophet Editors
  Quidditch Captains and Coaches
  Quite Successful Shop Managers (low end)
  Moderately Successful Shop Owners
  Well Established Professors (5+ years)
  Curse Breakers (low end salary; can go up to high end depending on finder's fee)
  Librarian, Museum Curator (start at 6G with 3s increase per year to a maximum of 9G)
  
  
  PAY LEVEL FIVE: 3g8s - 6g weekly
  Ministry Interns
  Hospital Interns
  Mediwizards
  Moderately Successful Shop Managers
  Less Successful Shop Owners
  Newer Professors (< 5 years)
  First string quidditch players
  Low-level Ministry Workers: Secretaries, Referees, Aurors-in-Training, Clerks, Scribes
  Governess to Middle (4G max) and Upper (4G min) class children
  Certain domestics in upper class homes: butlers, cooks, housekeepers (4G max)
  Junior Librarian (start at bottom with 2s increase per year to a maximum of 6g)
  Museum Tour Guide
  
  PAY LEVEL SIX: 2g - 3g8s weekly
  Second String quidditch player
  Mediwizards in training
  Prophet Reporters
  Skilled Workers - including certain shop employees
  Less Successful Shop Managers
  Standard Prostitutes
  Certain domestics in upper class homes: valets, lady's maids, gardeners (high end)
  Certain domestics in middle class homes: butlers, cooks, housekeepers (low end)
  Nannies
  All Summer Interns
  
  PAY LEVEL SEVEN: 8s - 2g weekly
  All Other Shop Employees
  Unskilled Workers: Inlcuding welcome witches, maids, etc.
  Laborours
  Shoddy Prostitutes
  All other domestics in middle class homes
  All other domestics in upper class homes
  
  Pay Level Four is the lowest income an individual can have to maintain a middle-class status without other income and/or parental support, though pay level three is required to move someone from lower to middle class.

Class

Money was a great deal of what made someone belong to a certain class, although it was not everything. Pay levels one and two were enough that they could launch one into the upper class; everything else did not, and some jobs (such as prostitute) automatically thrust someone into the lower class no matter how much or little they made.

It was very difficult to work ones way into the upper class, and when it was done it was usually done through owning a large business -- something much larger than a simple shop -- and the problem with entering the upper class through business was that a bad year could return you to the middle class or even destroy you completely and leave you in the lower class.

For the most part, it was birth or marriage that determined class, and class was quickest lost through reputation. Although a man would not remain long in the upper class if he were a common laborer, and even a middle class woman would fall to the lower class for prostitution, most work did not change ones class.

It was much easier to move down the social ladder than up (a baby out of wedlock, for example, could ruin a girl's reputation and thrust her into the lower class). The easiest way to move up in class was marriage, and even that option was usually only available to women because in most cases a woman took on her husband's social class.

Documentation written by Emily and Kayte exclusively for Charming.

Many thanks to the following sources:
Google
Harry Potter Lexicon: Wizarding World currency Converter
Harry Potter Wiki: Wizarding Currency
The Inflation Calculator