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?

Perhaps the real question should be over the phrase "working poor" which sounds like an oxymoron. The problem in the U.S. is that many people work 30, 40 or more hours a week but still qualify for public assistance which means taxpayers are subsidizing their employers.

Originally posted by Phranny
Perhaps the real question should be over the phrase "working poor" which sounds like an oxymoron. The problem in the U.S. is that many people work 30, 40 or more hours a week but still qualify for public assistance which means taxpayers are subsidizing their employers.

For some reason, on net, it must make economic, ideological and political sense to the powerful, to route part of the employee costs through government and on to the worker as "public assistance."

Originally posted by JS357

I look at archetypes like the Downton Abbey crew and wonder how much of the wealth of such dynasties came from the Triangle Trade of the 16-19th century.[/b]

That seems the greatest discriminator of class. New money tends to be labelled crass and gauche and requires generations of laundering, marrying wisely, adopting the mindset and contributing to society across many generations before being welcomed into the ranks.

To quote the old standard, it's not where you start, but where you finish. But if you do wind up on top of the pile, a lack of money will not rescind your status.

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.

No, Wikipedia is describing the original, English meaning of these terms, not the newer, USAnian and (therefore) money-centred interpretation.

Originally posted by JS357
For some reason, on net, it must make economic, ideological and political sense to the powerful, to route part of the employee costs through government and on to the worker as "public assistance."

Its very hard to unwind a system that took decades to establish. Government also subsidises the wealthy, sometimes indirectly through allowing loopholes in the tax code or directly by throwing subsidies and bailouts at their corporations. Guaranteeing a higher minimum wage may be one strategy to wean the working poor off the government teat by making business carry the extra weight, while still being 'true' to the lower taxes mantra.

Originally posted by kmax87
That seems the greatest discriminator of class. New money tends to be labelled crass and gauche and requires generations of laundering, marrying wisely, adopting the mindset and contributing to society across many generations before being welcomed into the ranks.

To quote the old standard, it's not where you start, but where you finish. But if you do wind up on top of the pile, a lack of money will not rescind your status.

I believe that the depiction of marriages between landed but no longer moneyed British male aristocrats and American females from wealthy newly-moneyed but untitled families was one approach to the maintenance and improvement of upper class status for both families.

"Consuelo was the most famous of the ‘dollar princesses’ – the fabulously rich daughters of these billionaires who came to England looking for the one thing they couldn’t buy at home: a title. In 1895 alone, nine American heiresses married members of the English aristocracy, and by the end of the century a quarter of the House of Lords had a transatlantic connection.

Even Princess Diana had an American great-grandmother. It was a straightforward economic exchange: American girls got to be aristocrats and impoverished peers got the money to mend their stately homes. Mary Leiter, who married Lord Curzon, had a dowry of £1.5 million as the daughter of a wealthy department store owner from Chicago – that’s about £50 million in today’s money. And Consuelo’s dowry was double that. "

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-1302195/Cash-titles-The-Billion-dollar-ladies.html

Originally posted by Shallow Blue
No, Wikipedia is describing the original, English meaning of these terms, not the newer, USAnian and (therefore) money-centred interpretation.

Ohhhh...you mean the centuries old English concept of only "royals" being upper class, everyone else being middle class even if they are rich, and all the other poor schmucks being lower class.
That hardly applies today does it?

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.

Good grief, a real aristocrat doesn't manage their own wealth, they have someone do that for them.

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

If anyone wishes to sometime retire, on more than Social Security, or maybe at all, they had better be saving and investing.

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.

I believe the original question wasn't about the roots of the term in colonial times, but what does it include today. It may well have subdivisions.

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

As I said, intentionally squishy definitions.

Originally posted by DeepThought
Good grief, a real aristocrat doesn't manage their own wealth, they have someone do that for them.

They manage their wealth that way.

Originally posted by normbenign
If anyone wishes to sometime retire, on more than Social Security, or maybe at all, they had better be saving and investing.

Or choosing their parents wisely.

Originally posted by normbenign
If anyone wishes to sometime retire, on more than Social Security, or maybe at all, they had better be saving and investing.

Retiring is a middle class concept.