A recent Times article focuses on the contrast between the glamourous image of Elizabethan court life and the harsh realities Elizabethan families enduring low standards, as revealed in Family Standards of Living Over the Long Run, England 1280–1850, by Professors Sara Horrell and Jane Humphries (LSE), and Professor Jacob Weisdorf. Their article is the first to track how living standards for families fell above or below a 'respectable' standard from the late 13th to mid-19th century, showing how after growth after the Black Death, living standards hit a low ebb in the late Elizabethan era due to a variety of long-term factors, not rising again until after the Civil War.
You can read a pdf of the Times article here: Elizabeth's Golden Age had little lustre for ordinary folk
The full article is published in Past and Present, is available via the link below:
Family Standards of Living Over the Long Run, England 1280–1850, Sara Horrell, Jane Humphries, Jacob Weisdorf, Past & Present, Volume 250, Issue 1, February 2021, pp 87–134