Roughly speaking, families in the "upper income" third earn $150,000 or more. And yet 59% of Republicans who make this much say they're working class. A third of Democrats do too.
Where does this come from? I could sort of understand it if these were people who were raised working class and still view themselves that way no matter how much they make. But I've seen the mobility numbers. Most of these high-income folks were raised in high-income families, and the vast majority were raised in at least middle-class families.
What do Republicans think working class means? Anyone who wishes they made more money? Anyone who resents people richer than they are? Anyone who's appalled at how much it costs to fill up their Land Rover?
What the hell is going on here?
“Working class” just means “I have to work for a living” now, especially as Americans no longer actually know anybody in a different lower class anymore. (Those people preparing their food or cleaning the house or whatever are Non Player Characters in the game that is My Life.)
Anyone below the CEO is just a working stiff.
+1
Yep, it isn't complicated.
This is what it’s always meant- if you work but don’t own the means of production, you’re working class.
Republicans: welcome to the Revolution!
No, it has never meant that. (That takes a truly astounding level of ignorance to be tht misinformed.) It means people who are skilled trades or manual labor (even if that means working at GM which could mean 150k a year with overtime.) . It includes retail salespeople like the grandparents who raised Obama or the fictional Al Bundy. If you work at a desk and need a university degree you are not and have never been working class.
Obama’s grandmother worked in a bank and became the first female bank VP in Hawaii. Not working class, solidly middle class..They could afford to send him to an elite private school.
Used to be most Americans, even those with a pretty big income thought of themselves as middle class, it had more to do with living a Leave it to Beaver lifestyle than income. People who did manual labor were considered blue collar because they usually wore darker color shirts, often blue, to hide dirt and sweat stains.
Yeah what me myself and I said.
I’m pretty sure working class used to be something suburbanites used to judge other people in the city for being, since my mom’s entire family lived in a city and were reminded all the time that they weren’t really middle class like the suburbanites were, even though we were white like them. “White trash” was what they called you behind your back and “working class” to your face.
Roseanne was the TV archetype of “working class” when I was growing up.
I suspect the definition changed when even suburbanites’ livelihoods got precarious, as well as when upper middle class people discovered that if they called themselves working class they would get politicians to give them tax cuts.
The family in the hilarious show “The Middle” were also working class and their house was smaller and not as nice as Roseanne’s/the Connor’s house.
Yes, lots of people have no idea "working class" is anything more than two words stuck together and will answer poll questions accordingly.
" . . . do Republicans think . . . "
There's your problem.
Most republicans I know aren't in tune with reality
Probably some sort of identity thing, not based on actual data.
In Japan it used to be that virtually everyone identified as middle class. Similarly, almost every woman in Japan is a size 9. Clothing manufacturers came out with gradations of size 9 to accommodate all the women who merely aspired to being size 9.
Humans come in lots of variation. Size of hips to waist to bust isn't a direct since axis.
Words change over time. We now have all sorts of situations where the same word means something completely different to Dems and Repubs.
Here, for a Repub, "working class" means you are not getting any of those giveaways to the lazy. As such, its not measured by income.
Yes, words certainly do change. Today's GOP brands itself as "conservative" while actually being fascist. They brand the Democratic Party as "liberal," when it is actually conservative.
How are Democrats 'conservative'?
How is 'liberal' bad?
I don't think he was implying that liberal is bad, just that it's not an accurate description of the Democratic Party (in his view). From what I've read, the left in many other developed countries considers our Democratic Party to be center-right by comparison.
Girl, take that Tesla out of your garage and go visit some other countries - Canada will do - and then come back and ask “how are Democrats conservative?” Other countries have political parties - Canada has 3! - that are way to the left of the US Democratic Party.
Canada's most right-wing major political party, the Conservatives, occupy about the same band in the political spectrum as the Democrats. Bernie Sanders would be comfortable with Canada's Liberals, the center party, and would find the NDP to be too far left for him.
Simple test: "universal health care, yes or no"? There is no significant political party in any country in the industrialized world other than the US that would answer "no".
Rob Ford's ghost would like a word...
In all fairness, Doug did an excellent job with covid. I imagine no thinking person saw that occurring ahead of time.
Actually those terms were the official ones used to designate social class by sociologists, etc. They have a specific definition just as poverty level does.
This is a real thing. I make an embarrassing multiple of what my parents did (It should embarrass the class warriors, not my me or my parents). And I still identify far more with (actual) working class folks, I probably always will.
It leaves me not really fitting anywhere. On the one hand, I don't have a lot of the cultural markers of work peers, and it shows. On the other, my comfortable income means I don't suffer a lot of the same things working-class folks do, so I'm just as clueless about that as the folks I work with.
I'm used to not having a tribe, I've always been an oddball, it is fine. But I completely understand why people who jump classes so frequently overcorrect one way or the other.
This sort of inverted "grade inflation" has been going on for a long time. I remember listening to someone twenty years ago who was in the top income decile yet still considered themself to be "working class."
I suppose it doesn't help that there are people making a quarter million a year who have no savings to speak of and are living effectively paycheck-to-paycheck.
In other words, economic idiots.
No, not when cost of living eats it all up.
Last year, they asked $36k to continue our health insurance. The average two-bedroom in my county costs $60k to rent.
Sorry, but you are a complete idiot. Cost of lining never needs to eat up a quarter of a million in income.
Teslas aren’t cheap. 🤣
But more seriously, yes. Even families of 10 can (and do!) survive on less than $250,000 of household income each year in any metro area. My grandmother raised 10 kids after her husband died on like $10,000 in the 1970s which is like $80,000 in 2024 dollars.
There is zero reason for anyone making 6 digits to be labeled “working class” if that means what it historically meant, which is “just a few paychecks away from poverty.”
Sorry, but the most common salary for skilled laborers (plumbers, millwrights, electricians) who are irrefutably working class is low 6 figures. Working class has to do with the nature of your work, not your salary.
Sounds like you need to move and change jobs (to one with employer paid health benefits). Believe or not it's actually possible to live off less than 100K. I know people who are doing so.
Because no one is lower than they are and they're proud of it.
It's fuck you all the way down.
+1
Because being poor is cool (c'est-à-dire, they're ashamed).
https://youtu.be/yuTMWgOduFM
To Republicans today, "working class" means "not woke."
We keep telling everyone, Republicans live in an alternate reality now, move accordingly.
"Where does this come from? I could sort of understand it if these were people who were raised working class " It's not unreasonable for a plumber or electrician to consider themselves working class even if they are making 150k a year. Now that isn't 33% of people making 150k plus a year let alone 59%, but it could be 5-10%. (Especially since that group of people would skew heavily republican.)
There's such a thing as a "high prole" with a six digit income who owns some sort of repair or maintenance business: the guy who owns an auto shop for example. But these types are not that common.
The skilled trades at GM with experience make just over 90k. With overtime it's in the 6 figures. That's going to be true of any decent manufacturer. The mechanics at the good auto shop are making 6 figures. The owner, if successful, is making double that. Same with plumbers, etc. etc.
People's views are definitely skewed and I've seen many people who categorize "working class" by the type of job rather than the amount of money that's made. For them you have financial tiers of Upper, Middle, and Lower class which is separate from office workers and non-office workers (working class).
"People's views are definitely skewed and I've seen many people who categorize "working class" by the type of job rather than the amount of money that's made. " The term for those people is "not ignoramuses.'.
If you did deeper, you will find that a very large chunk of the American population also identifies as "Middle Class." In fact those middle class and working class populations overlap a great deal.
For most Republicans, I suspect "working class" means "works for a living in the private sector", as opposed to the middle class Democrat hordes bludging off the taxpayer. Although in a different context they'd deplore the way Democrats have "hollowed out the middle class".
Kevin persists in trying to find rational explanations for the actions and beliefs of irrational people.
Everyone in America is descended from a Cherokee princess.
Same thing.
Roughly speaking, families in the "upper income" third earn $150,000 or more. And yet 59% of Republicans who make this much say they're working class. A third of Democrats do too. Where does this come from?
It comes from not being on easy street. That income translates into maybe $7,500/month take-home in a pricey metro like Boston, after taxes, health insurance and a modest (non-max) 401K deduction. Unless you bought your house a long time ago, you're likely going to be struggling to get by. The housing payment for someone who purchased a median home with 20% down in the last few years is likely in the four grand range—higher still if the downpayment was smaller. And with those kinds of numbers you're probably looking at a long commute, since properties closer to the urban core are much more expensive. Is it such a mystery why people who really have to budget very carefully think of themselves as "working class?"
What you're describing is the definition of middle class. The urban working class traditionally rent, they don't own (Or if they own, it's in a working class (i.e. rough) neighborhood
You can’t accuse them of screwing the working class when *they* are working class (although that is what they want our leaders to do). Also, there is still a type of respect and integrity that comes with that type of work and the upper class wanna grab a piece of that respect and integrity without putting in the work.
What do democrats think working class means?
They seem to think if your job is good you're not a worker.
My own heuristic: would the workers in [Job X] ever conceivably unionize to collectively bargain?
If not, then you can't possibly be working class.
$150k household income doesn't exactly make you rich, or even well off. Between my wife and I we make north of $150k but I wouldn't say we're financially comfortable. We frequently have to put off expenditures until the next pay check. Unless you always have the money on hand for regular expenses (or reasonable ad-hoc expenses) it feels like you are working class.
"but I wouldn't say we're financially comfortable." That's the definition of middle class.
From a British/New Zealand POV
Middle Class means - Secure
Short of a war or a major catastrophe you and your family are secure
Here and in the UK that is having a decent job and your own house
In the USA its different - in order to be "Secure" you need a LARGE amount of your own money
In the USA you can have a good job - your own house - and you are not secure as if you or your family have more than one large medical issue you could easily end up penniless and homeless
In the UK/NZ a large percentage of the population are "Middle class" - in the USA the percentage is much smaller