Best and worst times in history to be poor?

(UK context).

I'd say:

Best time: 1999.
Worst time: 1840.

I think your suggestions are good (for worst year, any year with a cholera epidemic and overwork in appalling cities would be high up there). Before the 19th century might mean you starve to death though because there probably wasn't a safety net like workhouses. not sure which I'd prefer the least. I suppose in the past it was probably easier to snag a few pheasants on the sly. The time of the Bloody Code (apparently 1688 to 1815) would be something to consider as well.

(UK context).

I'd say:

Best time: 1999.
Worst time: 1840.

Lady Comstock interested in being the scum which she so often disregards, reversed Stockholm syndrome?

Best time: 2003-2008 (high PPP, cheap credits with low interests, decent size welfare state, better housing market, employment standard laws before flexible labour market)

Worst time: 1850s (aggressive developments in the industrial production, Chartists movements dead, still waiting for Disraeli's factory/working hours laws and Lord Derby's enfranchisement)

We more or less agree.

Before the 19th century might mean you starve to death though because there probably wasn't a safety net like workhouses.

I think 1830-1900 was the worst because it combined Tudor poverty with errant capitalism (as a result of empire and the Industrial Revolution).

Sort of that transition period. After that conditions and attitudes changed somewhat for the better, and before that people were not so much worked to the bone in the service of capitalism.