The Middle Class

According to Wikipedia, "In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class. The common measures of what constitutes middle class vary significantly among cultures."

What is the working class? Are well-paid self-employed plumbers in, and less well paid bank tellers out? Are the middle class generally those who can afford to pay a mortgage, but can't buy their home without one?

Originally posted by JS357
According to Wikipedia, "In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class. The common measures of what constitutes middle class vary significantly among cultures."

What is the working class? Are well-paid self-employed plumbers in, an ...[text shortened]... le class generally those who can afford to pay a mortgage, but can't buy their home without one?

Originally posted by JS357
According to Wikipedia, "In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class. The common measures of what constitutes middle class vary significantly among cultures."

What is the working class? Are well-paid self-employed plumbers in, an ...[text shortened]... le class generally those who can afford to pay a mortgage, but can't buy their home without one?

Middle class is the working class.

You know, the guys who make enough money to be taxed, but not enough money to get any government benefits. They are the shmucks getting worked by both the Republicans and the Democrats.

Middle class can pay the bills but lack so much money that they need to invest it in large amounts.

Originally posted by normbenign
Some interesting questions. Personally, I think the term in America is intentionally squishy in order to appeal to that class from a variety of ideologies......

Originally posted by kmax87
I thought that class distinctions were based on what you did for work and not necessarily how much you made. And if you did white collar work, the amount of grey matter required to do your job also mattered. From a British colonial perspective, the middle class was too broad a label and was further split into upper middle, middle and lower middle classes.

Informal classifications and stereotypes

Middle class

Lower middle class

The British lower middle class primarily consists of office workers and their families living in less affluent suburbs. They are typically employed in relatively unskilled service industry jobs such as retail sales, travel agents, factory and other industrial building owners and low level civil service jobs in local and regional government.
Prior to the expansion in higher education from the 1960s onwards, members of this class generally did not have a university education.
Members of the lower middle class typically speak in local accents, although relatively mild. The comedy character Hyacinth Bucket is a satirical stereotype for this social group.

Middle middle class

The middle class in Britain often consists of people with tertiary education. They may have been educated in either state or private schools.
Typical jobs include accountants, architects, solicitors, surveyors, social workers, managers, specialist IT workers, engineers, doctors or civil servants. Displays of conspicuous consumption are considered vulgar by them; instead they prefer to channel excess income into investments, especially property.
Members of the middle class are often politically and socially engaged and might be regular churchgoers, sit on local committees and governing boards or stand for political office. Education is greatly valued by the middle classes: they will make every effort to ensure their children get a university education; although they are sometimes unable to afford private schooling, they may go to great lengths to get their children into good state or selective grammar schools, such as moving house into the catchment area.
They also value culture and make up a significant proportion of the book-buying and theatre-going public. They typically read broadsheet newspapers rather than tabloids.

Upper middle class

The upper middle class in Britain broadly consists of people who were born into families which have traditionally possessed high incomes, although this group is defined more by family background than by job or income.
The upper middle class are traditionally educated at independent schools, preferably one of the 'major' or 'minor' "public schools" which themselves often have pedigrees going back for hundreds of years and charge fees of as much as £33,000 per year per pupil (as of 2014).
Many upper-middle-class families may have previous ancestry that often directly relates to the upper classes. Although not necessarily of the landowning classes – as a result, perhaps, of lack of a male heir – many families' titles/styles have not been inherited and therefore many families' past status became dissolved.
Although such categorisations are not precise, popular contemporary examples of upper-middle-class people may include Boris Johnson, David Cameron (politicians), Helena Bonham Carter (actress), and Matthew Pinsent (athlete).

Originally posted by JS357
According to Wikipedia, "In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class. The common measures of what constitutes middle class vary significantly among cultures."

What is the working class? Are well-paid self-employed plumbers in, an ...[text shortened]... le class generally those who can afford to pay a mortgage, but can't buy their home without one?

Originally posted by FishHead111
Wiki is just plain out to lunch in their definition, as you pointed out working class people like plumbers, mechanics, etc can make damn good money and are certainly middle class and can even make upper middle class.
Bank tellers make squat, typically minimum wage to start with very small raises over the years.

Having not defined what upper and lower class is, the definition is fairly meaningless isn't it?

Originally posted by kmax87
[b]This edited from wiki kind of sums it up.
Middle middle class

The middle class in Britain often consists of people with tertiary education. They may have been educated in either state or private schools.
Typical jobs include accountants, architects, solicitors, surveyors, social workers, managers, specialist IT workers, engineers, doctors or civil servants.

Originally posted by FishHead111
OK this sets everything I've ever considered middle class on it's ear.
Doctors, lawyers, engineers, architects are considered middle class?

To me middle class is someone in the middle income range no matter what their job. They make enough to get by just fine and have a modest amount of disposable income.

Originally posted by FishHead111
OK this sets everything I've ever considered middle class on it's ear.
Doctors, lawyers, engineers, architects are considered middle class?

To me middle class is someone in the middle income range no matter what their job. They make enough to get by just fine and have a modest amount of disposable income.

Originally posted by JS357
I think the Brits' definition is affected by the erstwhile presence of a genuine aristocracy of people whose only "labor" was the management of their wealth and the of the assets that wealth allowed them to own. More or less the upstairs family of Downton Abbey. The middle class included their physicians, lawyers, financiers, and other professionals, successfu ...[text shortened]... e political establishment. Today's British royalty is like an animated wax museum of those days.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
It's similar in the USA