My project is a history of the concept of “standard(s) of living” and the array of actors who defined, evaluated, quantified, legislated, and used this keyword. A global history told from the vantage point of imperial and decolonizing France, this dissertation follows the concept’s travels across metropolitan, colonial, international, European, and post-colonial geographic-juridical scales. Based on archival research in western Europe, Senegal, and the United States, my dissertation argues that interwar social scientists and colonial administrators deployed the standard of living as a tool for generating knowledge used to legitimate colonial rule and that its core meaning was fundamentally altered as a result. My project then illuminates how the standard of living that emerged from these colonial reform projects became central to mid- twentieth century processes, including: the unraveling of European empires, the proliferation of international development projects, the codification of human rights law, and the consolidation of welfare and developmental states.