4 ms·

"Working class" is a terrible misnomer for "lower class" or "poor".

• excuse-me 15y ago
  Not where I come from it isn't. I'm working class, I come from a pit village in N. England, my father was a miner, my family were miners or steelworkers. I now have a PhD in physics and work in aerospace, but I'm still working class! And for most of my life (certainly my academic career!) I was poorer than most working class people with union jobs on assembly lines.
  • showerst 15y ago
    Those words have slightly different meanings in England vs the US I think. In the US upper vs middle vs working class is related to income and lifestyle. If you're a coal miner who somehow makes 80k/year (i just made that up, who knows if it exists) you'd be firmly middle class in popular discourse the US, despite the fact that you're in a working class job. Similarly one auto-plant can pay union workers 70k (middle class) and non-union 30k (working class, or at least on the line) for the same job. I think in the UK it's more delineated by job and upbringing than income, right? Note that I'm just speaking out usage by normal people/media, those words (although usually avoided in favor of income deciles) can be given specific definitions in academic research.
    • excuse-me 15y ago
      In the UK class=job not salary. Approiximately; jobs needs a degree=middle class, owning the land = upper class. Working on oil rig and earning 4x as much as a school teacher still makes that a working class job, the teacher is middle class. The rig manager is working class, the geologist is middle class. But ultimately it's a personal identity thing. You can be a member of the royal family making furniture or a working class lad making avionics software!
      • nknight 15y ago
        You are speaking of social class, which is highly attenuated in the US. Economic class is what I'm speaking of.