I think Christopher Dyer reckoned about 240 working days in a year for carpenters, thatchers, and other day labourers in late medieval England after allowing for sickness and holy days and family duties and rest (which is handy, because then an income in pennies per day is pounds per year!) But there were a significant population earning a pound English or so a year, just like there was a significant population with no change of clothing and one or two changes of underwear. At Pavia in 1525, the imperialists tried to make a night attack and decide that everyone would wear a shirt over their other kit so they could recognize each other, at which point one of the captains shifted uncomfortably and reminded the lords that some of the lads did not have a spare shirt and they made arrangements to use paper and tent canvas.
But yes, that narrative of continual progress, or something in the 18th or 19th century happening which is the cause of everything good and nothing bad, has a lot of problems.