The main aim of this article is to analyze real wages, absolute income poverty, and relative income poverty in the Chilean manufacturing sector during the postwar years (1945-1970). We develop different measures of basic living standards with consumer prices archives of the cities of Antofagasta, Valparaiso, Santiago, and Concepcion. The conclusions are as follows: (1) contrary to the cases of central Europe and the USA, the postwar years were not golden years for the Chilean manufacturing workers; (2) during the 1960s real wages recovered, but they did not reach the poverty levels of 1945.