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Yes it is, you're making his point.
by remram 4y ago
Yes it is, you're making his point.
- rcme 4y agoNo, in the U.S., the middle class can include much of the working class. The middle class has typically included the entirety of the manufacturing sector prior to the year 2000. When people vote for politicians who say they're going to bring back manufacturing jobs, those voters aren't clamoring for lower-class wages, obviously.
- remram 4y agoYes. In America, "middle-class" is everybody if you ask them, i.e. it is an extremely stretched concept.
- rcme 4y agoThat’s because, after WWII, you could do basically any job in the US and afford things we typically associate with the middle class, e.g. a modest home in a decent neighborhood. So everyone really was middle class.
- remram 4y agoYes, they are not working class.
- rcme 4y agoPeople who work factory jobs aren’t “working class”? Who is working class then? To be honest, it sounds like your definition of working class is the definition that’s being stretched. Upper / middle / lower class is about wealth. In a society with little income inequality, the middle class can become quite large. “Working class” is a class related to a type of work. In most places, the jobs that make up the working class are low paying, so the working class is also lower class. But this didn’t use to be the case in the US.
- remram 4y agoFrom wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_class https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_class): > The modern usage of the term "middle-class", however, dates to the 1913 UK Registrar-General's report, in which the statistician T.H.C. Stevenson identified the middle class as those falling between the upper-class and the working-class. "Middle" literally stands for "between" working-class and upper-class. What do you think it's in the middle of? You can also see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_middle_class#Academic_models https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_middle_class#Academic... for a comparison of different contemporary models of the American middle-class specifically (all of which place the middle class in the middle of working-class and some other class, obviously).
- acdha 4y agoNot in the United States. Generally middle-class stretched to something along the lines of having enough income you own a home, at least one car, etc. and a level of financial stability (you can take a vacation, plan to retire, etc. even if not lavishly) and access to healthcare. This did not require a professional job – a skilled carpenter or plumber, union factory worker, career postal worker, etc. probably qualified - but that started changing around the time Reagan was elected. When politicians talk about bringing good jobs back, that’s the image they’re trying to conjure up.
- remram 4y agoMiddle-class literally stands for "in the middle" of working-class and upper class. You can disagree on who's in there, how many are in there, etc but disagreeing about what it means is futile. The middle class is not the working class, by definition. See also sibling subthread.
- acdha 4y agoAgain, your mistake is in assuming that there’s a single unambiguous definition. As other people have attempted to help you learn that is not true in popular usage. Rather than unsuccessfully being pedantic it would be better to more precisely state which particular attributes you care about in the context of the larger conversation.
- remram 4y agoPopular usage seems to be just you two. I have provided sources in the other subthread, telling me what you think everyone believes is unconvincing.
- acdha 4y agoLess inaccurately, you cherry-picked a single quote on Wikipedia from a century old source and ignored the rest of the page saying that definitions vary. I’m not sure why you feel the need to belabor this point but would suggest reading the entire page or at least the first paragraph: > Common definitions for the middle class range from the middle fifth of individuals on a nation's income ladder, to everyone but the poorest and wealthiest 20%