What is your class status?

[Rhyfelwyr]

Just thought I would make a poll to see how the the Backroom membership fit in along class lines. Maybe it will also generate some discussion on the relevance the old 3-class system has in today's world. From what I remember, in school you now are not supposed to write about working/middle/upper class, but instead they have some sort of rating system from A-E I think it might be, with different bands inbetween (eg A1, A2, A3, B1 etc), although I can't remember the details.

Anyway, what does class mean to people nowadays? Is it still a boundary to social mobility? If so, is it because of people's attitudes and perceived inequalities, as opposed to actual barriers in 'the system'? Is it a cultural thing, or purely concerned with material status? Is is still an active force in society, or is what we see today the dying remnants left over from the days of big industry?

As for me, I am middle class, as I think most people here will be. One side of my family is very much working class though they don't seem to identify with it, whereas my dad's side are farmers, so I'm not sure where they fit it. But I was raised as any middle class person in a nice middle class level house, well at least from the age of 6 or so, and so I say I am middle class.

It will take a minute to put it up, but I will be adding a multi-choice poll. My bet is the most common answer will be simply middle class, with a large number of people having risen in class, though I'm not sure how they will identify, its especially hard to tell with an international audience. Here, a lot of people who move up from working to middle class still identify as working class, I guess because Scotland has such a strong tradition of heavy industries, and the whole Red Clydeside thing etc. It will be interesting to get a look at things on a wider scale here...

[Ser Clegane]

In my early childhood I would say that we were a working class family - neither my father nor my mother had "Abitur" and during my first years both had typical working class jobs.
Through stable earnings and through my mother's job development (from part-timer in a small supermarket to manager of a rather large one) we moved towards Middle class during my highschool time.
As both my wife and myself have a university degree now and considering my current job I think Middle Class would best decribe my current status.

Naturally (through friends of the past 30 years, job, neighbourhood etc.) I would also rather identify with the Middle Class nowadays (but not "forgetting" or - even worse - rejecting my roots)

[Louis VI the Fat]

I'd like to have some sort of class too.

[TinCow]

The 3 class system doesn't work for most Americans. Most Americans categorize themselves as Middle Class, with a further three levels of division within Middle Class. A true American class scale looks like this:

Lower Class
Lower Middle Class
Middle Class
Upper Middle Class
Upper Class

With the above categories, almost all Americans will fit themselves within the three Middle Class variations, with very few picking Lower Class or Upper Class. You also cannot analogize Upper Middle Class to Upper Class, and Lower Middle Class to Lower Class, because if you forced most Americans who self-identified as those classes to pick on of the traditional three, they would almost all pick Middle Class instead of their Lower or Upper subdivisions.

This is the result of a nation with no historical background for aristocracy.

[Hooahguy]

middle class for me. but i was confused between the working class and the middle class. i alsways assumed that the middle class also included people who worked, thus making it part of the working class. maybe you meant "lower class"?

[rory_20_uk]

Upper-middle (doctor) from middle-middle (teacher) parents. Grandparents were lower-middle (plumber) / middle-middle (teacher).

[miotas]

I think that I would be middle class.

I'm curious as to what you mean by working class. Do you mean counstruction labourers, mechanics and other jobs like that? Because most that I know are quite well paid. Sure the first 4 or 5 years they get low pay while they're working as an apprentice, but after that is done then they start making some good dollars. And I know many who quite rich with multiple, paid-off, very nice houses and cars and 6 figures year.

[Ice]

Born into a middle class family... stayed there for a while... moved to upper class for a few years... now I'm back in the upper middle

[Justiciar]

Born in a council estate in York. Raised in a fairly cushy semi-detatched in subrural Cheshire. Bugger all prospects. Will probably either end up in another council estate, or on the street. Hurrah!

[seireikhaan]

I'd say my family was solidly middle class until until I hit third grade. Parents divorced, and financial implications were pretty bad. I ended up with my dad, and roped around from apartment to apartment until I graduated high school. Those years, I'd say I was lower-middle class, but only because my dad is such a workaholic and can seemingly just keep chugging along irrespective of how many hours he works. I got more benefit out of his pay than he did, and for that, I'll always be grateful. I hope to one day work myself into something resembling upper middle class where I can lead a fairly comfortable lifestyle without having to work an excruciating number of hours.

[TinCow]

Might be easier if we all wrote a description ala Wakizashi above?

I started to respond to this, then stopped out of embarrassment. Then I started again, and stopped again for the same reason. Why? Well, frankly, for a lot of my formative years I've had what some would refer to as a silver spoon up my . It's not something I usually discuss. I feel like whenever this becomes known, people think I don't deserve to be where I am, despite the fact that I had nothing to do with my background and I've worked hard at every job I've ever had. It's strange, but I've always been embarrassed of being well-off when I'm not with others who are as well.

When I was born, my parents were solidly middle class (even with the split American definition), though I would call my father's parents working class (his father built bombs for a defense contractor) and my mother's parents middle class (ranchers and cotton farmers, but prosperous and both husband and wife had college degrees). Both of my parents had college degrees, though during college I would classify my father as poor (shot a deer just to eat for a month) and my mother as 'well-off' (her 'clothing allowance' per semester was larger than my father's entire semesterly budget). My father worked as a floor manager at an oil refinery after he graduated from college (chemical engineering degree) and my mother worked as a legal secretary (english degree). Nothing glamorous.

My mother stopped working after I was born and never returned to work in any way that mattered financially. However, my father was extremely successful and quickly left the refinery floor for a desk job. By the time I was 13, he was working for BP and our entire family was transferred to London so that he could work at the headquarters. His salary grew exponentially and the perks provided to expat families soon resulted in a drastic change in our lifestyle.

I graduated first from college and then from law school (first in my family with a professional degree) without any debts of any kind, thanks to their generosity. My wife and I are both attorneys and she also had no debt of any kind, though her father was career military and simply managed his money very well (us both being only children has helped a lot in this aspect). I have not taken a single dime of my parents' money since I graduated from law school, barring $1500 for the first month's rent after graduation which I paid back in full within two months. That said, my parents are what most people would consider 'rich' (though I disagree with that assessment) and my wife and I have incomes well above the national average without any debts of any kind, barring a mortgage. We also both have trust funds, though they are relatively small and come from my maternal grandmother, not my parents, and were created to avoid inheritance tax when she passes away (my maternal grandfather invested very well in the stock market).

[CountArach]

My family is probably upper-middle class. Obviously I don't really identify with this and indeed my parents don't either. My grandfather on my father's side was a working class builder who dragged himself up to middle class, so that could perhaps explain why my father doesn't identify along this class line. I'm (hopefully) going to end up in much the same place if I can pull off my plans to get a PhD in history.

[Mouzafphaerre]

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With family roots in military aristocracy, we've been of the middle class since my grandfather (paternal) and agrarian-working/middle class on my mother's side.

As for identification, I'm of the Mouzafphaerrian class.
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