It's so hard to think about class in the United States

[firecat]

snippy posted about an interactive feature on CNN.com that attempts to determine whether you, a person residing in the US, can correctly identify whether you count as "middle-class."

Here is the gist of the comment I left over at snippy's post:

Income is not a great gauge of class by itself. Net worth matters a LOT.

Have you read The Millionaire Next Door? One of the main themes is that some professionals with high incomes believe that appearing wealthy is an important part of their professional reputation. So they have big houses, expensive cars and clothes, and are deep in debt. Some rich people think it's important to save money, so they have lots of assets but they don't live in fancy houses, drive beat-up cars, etc. (The book is rather simplistic in its judgements but I agree that those patterns exist.)

Those rich folks and professionals might have similar gross incomes. But are they the same class?

They are defining "middle class" where I live as a household income of $68,420—$107,815.

They're counting it as the middle fifth of income, which means they're assuming five classes. One wonders what the results would be like if they took the middle third of income (I suspect the results would be more boring, although I'm sure some people would define themselves as middle class when they aren't in the middle third of income).

Comments

[jae]

Those rich folks and professionals might have similar gross incomes. But are they the same class?

Is social class about purchasing power, though? It doesn't tend to be used that way in the social sciences. Generally it tends to be taken to be about occupation (or, in the case of under-18s, their parents' occupations).

Another thought: in the UK, you can be upper class and broke, or middle-class and very wealthy, though I'm not sure that's true in either the U.S. or Canada.

-J

[firecat]

I've heard axes discussed that are more complex than one's occupation, such as knowledge set, access to liquid assets for covering sudden expenses, ideas of taste and respectability.

[jae]

I guess I think that by the time you get into definitions like that, you're talking about something related to, but somewhat different from, traditional conceptions of social class. That's not necessarily a bad thing, not at all--in fact, many current-day social scientists think it's better to look at "one's role in society" in terms of social network or linguistic marketplace within their studies instead. But what you're describing doesn't sound like social class as I understand it.

-J

[spiralsheep]

Yes, in England, social class is more than merely socio-economic class (or social status) and can even be inheritable via, for example, hereditary aristocratic titles. Even in the 21st century's globalised capitalist plutocracy* not all markers of social class or social status can be immediately purchased for ready money.

* lol

[firecat]

There isn't much comparable in the US, although I suspect that being part of one of the industrialist baron families might have some things in common.

[spiralsheep]

Our old aristo families basically began as robber barons who were into power politics so the Bushs (?and Kennedys?) would be a not untypical analogy, although they combine several eras of behaviour as they also wave the old school tie about and that wasn't rly part of the system until the 19thC in England (unless being a well-placed squire counts as an early manifestation). Your political system hasn't had time to fully ossify, and perhaps globalisation and the speed of socio-technological change will make that less likely (after all, look at the history of the ends of the British and Roman Empires).

[bibliofile]

Kennedys are a prime example of that: Joe Kennedy decided to move into politics, which is why his kids (JFK, Bobby, Teddy) ran for office.

A lot of our upperclass aristos have lots of power and status that isn't outwardly recognized with landed titles, but they're there all right. Think of the 400 families in the Social Register of Edith Wharton's time, plus robber barons and oil money (e.g., Rockefellers) and such.

One of the things I like about Henry Louis Gates's tv show on geneaology? Finding out that Samuel L Jackson is descended from an early (white) colonst and thus eligible for the Sons/Daughters of the American Revolution type groups.

[spiralsheep]

::nods understanding::

Samuel L Jackson is descended from an early (white) colonst and thus eligible for the Sons/Daughters of the American Revolution

Lol, yes. I used to freak out "Irish Americans" by pointing out how very many "African Americans" are as "Irish" in their antecedents (in various differing genetic and cultural ways). Reclaiming of exclusive identities from excluding groups by less socially privileged members of those groups has caused me much joyful merriment over the years. /multiracial

[shehasathree]

I think the idea of access to liquid assets for covering sudden expenses is really important - all the other standard measures grossly overestimate me and my partner's standard of living because they fail to take into account that while i am well-educated, i can't work much, and my health-related costs are very expensive.

[firecat]

Yeah, good point.

[johnpalmer]

In the UK, I heard that was the standard. A professor at a university was "upper class" but might have a pauper's salary.

In the US, nominally classless, the term refers to ideas of wealth. "Upper class" = "wealthy" and I think there's a meme around inherited wealth and snobbery, so that an investment banker making seven figures is scornfully insisting on "just" being middle class. Middle class means having creature comforts and minor luxuries, in return for plenty of labor; lower class means "just scraping by, if that."

One hilarious set of ideas around 2008-2010 was a set of figures trying desperately to show that if you made $250,000 a year, why, after you paid your expensive mortgage, maximized your 401(k) contributions, and paid for private school for your two children, you weren't actually making all *that* much money! So don't call these poor people making a lousy stinking 1/4 of a million a year *rich* or anything!