A working class definition... - building a unique class US?

[Larissa]

Could someone please define "working class" in the context of the year 2000?

I remember flipping through an old Life magazine from the late 30s or early 40s and being rather taken aback when I read the caption of a certain picture: "American working class family blah blah blah...."

How times change.

It seems that in the US the solution to class conflicts was not to remove the source of the conflicts, but to convince everyone that they belong to the same class. You ask a waitress who earns $16,000 a year and lives in an unsanitary dump and she'll tell you she's "middle class". You ask a guy with 4 TVs, a jacuzzi, and a couple SUVs in the driveway of his $300,000 house and he, too, will tell you he's "middle class".

Better living through lexical engineering!

[Larissa]

Marx said - the working class has nothing to lose apart from chains.

And someone I know said: "Anyone who sells their soul to an employer is working-class, whatever they do, whatever they earn. The rest are aristocrats."

[Som]

Likely a part of this same engineering, but I tend to find American classes, with the exception of the high upper class, to be rather trivial.

America doesn't function on the same terms, the 'petit burgiouoise' of the middle class is large, and theres not such a definite line between many of them and the working class. The employers are just another level below those few at the top.

It almost seems theres the CEOs, board directors, owners and so on, and everyone else is just trailing down a chain of bad authority. Those that are the 10% with 80% of the wealth.

The lines are blurred, the top and the owners are still there, just whether everyone below is part of the 'working class' is a bit different.

[truthaddict11]

i guess tenants could be considered worker class unless they live in condos or large houses or apartments

[redstar2000]

Larissa, I saw a piece on the BBC web site a month or so ago, that compared computer software and development engineers to 19th century industrial workers...that is, 14 to 18 hour shifts, no trade union protection, no job security, etc.

Some of them, no doubt, make $50,000 a year or even more...at least as long as they still have a job. And all of them would insist that they're "middle class."

I think that might be one way to see the difference: it's very hard to pretend that you're "middle class" when you work at Wal-Mart or McDonald's...your standard-of-living simply doesn't measure up.

But a micro-serf at Microsoft can flatter himself over his paycheck...though he has no time to spend it. He is a worker who doesn't realize that he's a worker.

Another part of the "middle class" mythology is "home ownership". I think about 65% of the adult population in the U.S. own their own home...a fairly high figure. The reality behind the myth is that nearly all of them owe huge sums of money to banks and mortgage companies...should they lose their jobs, they are no more than six months from sleeping on the sidewalk. But as long as they own a house or apartment, the self-flattery that they are "middle class" continues.

Finally, we shouldn't overlook consumer credit...the magical plastic card that allows low-income workers to briefly taste the joys of "middle-class" existence.

If you have a projected annual income of $15,000 a year before taxes, you qualify. $15,000 a year is barely enough to survive in the U.S. (for one person)...an extra $1,000 or $2,000 in credit allows for a few of those "middle-class" trappings---until you can't make the payments any more.

The success of the myth of the "great American middle class" has been spectacular...in as little as 20 or 30 years hence, no one will believe that people were once suckered so easily...

:cool:

[Conghaileach]

Apparently in the US, Buish is making it more difficult for families to dclare bankruptcy. If the were able to do this, then they wouldn't have to pay off theirt credit card et al debts, and the big businesses can't have that.

[Larissa]

"But a micro-serf at Microsoft can flatter himself over his paycheck...though he has no time to spend it. He is a worker who doesn't realize that he's a worker."

That same thing happened to me once (I didn't work for Microsoft, but a similar corp) and I hate it much enough to quit my job and decline being exploited the way I was. I earned a lot of money but no money is ever enough worth to resign your true beliefs.

I work on my own now and do still make a lot of money, but I'm no longer serf-slave and I spend 30% of my income building schools in the poorest places of my country. And I have plenty of time free!!!

[Valkyrie]

I think the brackets change every few years according to the economy, inflation and cost of living.

Last thing I knew - a family of 4 making less than 20,000 was poverty

20,000 to 35,000 was considered low middle-class

35.000- 75,000 - middle class

75,000 to whatever, high middle class

and so on.... These aren't carved in stone however and are probably changed as I wrote them.

It is not uncommon that a person with a bachelors degree has a job that pulls an annual income of $50 k a year and has a spouse with the same. making the national median income of $100.000 per year.

[mentalbunny]

Can anyone tell me where the official poverty line is? I always here abotu how many people in the UK and US are below it, but what exactly does that mean?

[Valkyrie]

In the US, a family of 4 making less than aprox. $18,000 a year is living in poverty. an income of $18.000 yr. would permit 4 people to live on $346.00/ week. -- $1,384/month.

There are many many families and individuals in the US whose incomes fall much below that due to people not being able to get full time jobs and being forced to work part time minimum wage jobs which frequently are about 20 -30 hours a week with no health insurance provided.

The US Federal minimum wage is $5.15 an hour.. So if a person was working a part time job 20 hrs. week, they would be living on around $103/week, $412/mo. a little over 5,000 yr. net income, before federal income taxes are deducted. The wage disparity between poverty and middle class is enourmous. Living 400 a month is impossible; as rents alone, atleast where I live, are a standard $800 mo. for a one-bedroom apartment.
This accounts for why a lot of people who are employed are also homeless.

According to the chart, a few states have higher minimum wages, and even a few are lower!!

http://www.dol.gov/esa/minwage/america.htm

http://www.dol.gov/esa/minwage/chart.htm


Again, this is the current poverty level in the US is based on a cost of living index which flucturates accordinging to the Economy, but which more people are increasingly falling into.


Here is the US poverty Guidelines site:

http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/02poverty.htm


(Edited by Paris at 10:42 pm on Jan. 25, 2003)


(Edited by Paris at 10:54 pm on Jan. 25, 2003)

[Larissa]

Quote: from Paris on 5:07 pm on Jan. 25, 2003
I think the brackets change every few years according to the economy, inflation and cost of living.

Last thing I knew - a family of 4 making less than 20,000 was poverty

20,000 to 35,000 was considered low middle-class

35.000- 75,000 - middle class

75,000 to whatever, high middle class

and so on.... These aren't carved in stone however and are probably changed as I wrote them.

It is not uncommon that a person with a bachelors degree has a job that pulls an annual income of $50 k a year and has a spouse with the same. making the national median income of $100.000 per year.

To be honest, I really don't know. One way of classifying people that I think is fairly meaningful is the following:

-- Ultra-rich: You have other people to worry about what to do with your money
-- Rich: You have to worry about what to do with your money
-- Middle class: You don't have to think about money too much, excepting large acquisitions (house, car, etc.)
-- Poor: You have to worry about how to get money in the first place
-- Ultra poor: Your survival is questionable

This scheme highlights what your main economic concern in life is, and for the most part what your main overall focus in life is. I suppose that under this definition and Paris's definition I'd be middle class, but that's really only because I live strictly within my means: no loans, pay cash for everything (meaning I don't buy what I can't afford, and I save up if I want something I can't afford), etc.

One big problem with this definition is that it depends on your lifestyle. If I decided to live lavishly, for example, I'd quickly have to worry about how to get a lot more money than I make today.

Plus, we should keep in mind how potentially downwardly mobile we all are. Cut off my work flow and I'd be on the street in a couple months, no doubt about it.

This is nothing more than thinking out loud, really, and should be taken as such.

BTW, I gotta go back to work (fortunatelly I work at home through Internet)

[Pete]

I've heard that the average income in the United States is 18 000 a year. Basically there are alot of Ultra rich and Ultra poor people. I think in Canada the Poverty line is 20 000 or 28 000? Whenever the Feds want to look better they lower it and say 'Look this many people are no longer in poverty.' Such a bullshit action, and proves bad stuff about some statistics. The average income in Canada in 30 000, I think in my county of 77 000 people only 15 make more then 100 000 a year, but we are an agricultural centre so that may not say a lot.

[workingpoor]

i think that trying to define classes by a set monetary unit is impossible. the middle class is by far the largest population in the US by my definition which is people who have to work just sustain the lifestyle that they have currently. this could include the guy with in suburbia with 2 suv and a jacquzi because he is probably just sustain the lifestyle but not saving anything. I can't rember the exavt nubmer now but i believe that most americans live paycheck to paycheck. to me that is middle class.

[antieverything]

This is a really great thread, lot's of good thoughts flying around--I especially like Redstar's comments about the "microserfs".

It seems that the average American has been conditioned since birth to spend themselves into debt. It's good for the "economy" if you know what I mean.

[Larissa]

"It seems that the average American has been conditioned since birth to spend themselves into debt"

Yes, and now when I receive all this spams about "reduce you debt" I can see the real "benefits" of capitalism: people's own destruction.

[Pete]

The more you own, the more in debt you actually are. If you have 3 cars, two houses, you are much more indebt than someone with an apartment and a bus pass.

[Invader Zim]

The class idea in relation to modern times is daft, it takes into account many obsilite things in socioty. It is not even based on ones wage.

Its based on things like: -

- Background, ie where you live or were you were brought up. In todays socioty you can have people living in shitty areas working in offices etc. So thats gone.

-Job, ie if your a worker your lower class, it takes no account of the modern job ratio. Which is that few people now work in industry etc, most now work in offices etc, Totaly destroying that factor.

-What you wear, traditionally the upper, middle and lower classes all wore set fashons and types of cloaths. Now every body owns a suit, and a set of rags they were at home. Many people also from all the traditional classes were the same cloaths, when they go out. You only have to see what the young people were to see that.

Stupid out of date class margins.

[mentalbunny]

For the British situation read Hard Work by Polly Toynbee. I can't remember the facts right now but I'll stick em up here sometime soonish.