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).

[Crazed Rabbit]

Division by class is an outdated concept, like thinking martians live on mars.

CR

[TinCow]

Division by class is an outdated concept, like thinking martians live on mars.

Only lower class Martians live on Mars. Those with the means to do so have long since moved to Phobos.

[Rhyfelwyr]

Division by class is an outdated concept, like thinking martians live on mars.

CR

Commie!

[Fragony]

My parents are typical working class I guess, neither had an education, but my dad's library would be the envy of many a scholar. I am well of, better then most people of my age. I don't really think in classes.

[Samurai Waki]

Started out dirt poor as a Kid, three siblings, two bedroom apartment. Dad worked endlessly, hardly ever saw the guy, little did I realize at the time that what he was doing was building himself up a miniature empire. Eventually bought a bunch of dirt cheap property, turned it into subdivisions, had a nice little sum of cash, bought some more, rinse and repeat. When Property Value hit it's peak, he sold out, and walked away. Unfortunately, he had only a couple of years to enjoy his wealth, and then us four kids equally divided the estate. So I've gone up considerably in class since my conception, and will hopefully remain financially secure throughout my lifetime, but I still mostly identify with my blue collar pals, I grew up with.

My kids... maybe not so much.

[Beskar]

Everyone says they are middle class, because they don't want to be at the "bottom". There is always the underclass too, which isn't mentioned on the charts which is the non-working classes. Only real classes are the people and the elites, the rest and there just to divide people.

[Viking]

I've never ever felt like I, or anyone else, belonged to a certain class. Take for instance a friend I had at primary school; dad was a plumber, mother a physical therapist. I am sorry, but the concept of class does not make any sense to me..

[Ja'chyra]

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

I come from a single parent family where my mum didn't work, definately working class if not downright poor.

Now I am a government employee, the first of my extended family to own my own house, more do since then, currently living in a large 4 bedroom end terrace in Wales and earn £32k + a year without overtime or long hours. I am a middle manager and after coming through an engineering apprenticeship I rarely get my hands dirty or work outside anymore, mores the pity.

[TinCow]

Beskar's table has $200k+ listed as the top of the rung. This seems like a low salary at which to set that bar, but it's a trend I've seen before in similar discussions. I have a general question for anyone who's willing to answer: How much money does someone need to have/make before they are classified as 'rich'? Feel free to define this based on annual income, total assets, or any other method you want.

[Strike For The South]

Both my parents where working class born into large families

Mums dad was a fireman/fisherman and her mum was a teacher. There where 11 kids in her family.

Dads dad was a janitor/electrtian/tanner and his mum was a waitress. There were 7 kids in his family

My family is probably middle class.

[Beskar]

Just for reference, it isn't my list, it is from Wikipedia and the sources of that is in the bottom corner.

[Strike For The South]

According to this I'm woring class. But I don't even have a high-school diploma--that suggests I would have "some college."

Your list is a little skewed. Someone making 20k in New York, for example, is a lot worse off than someone making 20k in South Dakota.

Location:Ft.Sam Houston

How do you like the heart of TEXAS?????

[Megas Methuselah]

Bottom of society. Always have been since the 1870's when Canada came and took over. Before then, my family was composed of hereditary chiefs, of which I am exceedingly proud.

Anyways, I'm going to university right now, so I think I'll be be rising in status in the future. It's a shame I'm the only young person of my generation in my family (including my numerous 2nd and 3rd degree cousins) to have actually graduated from high school.

[Papewaio]

If you make all/majority your money from salary you ain't upper class. If you have to work to survive you ain't upper class no matter how much money you take in.

I think what is more telling is how many weeks you can go without work before you have to make drastic lifestyle changes to get along.

Also where you live. I have to say although Sydney is very expensive by Aussie standards, virtually all Aussies can go to the beach on the weekend in summer. So not just how much you make, but lifestyle is more important. No point making $100k and staring at cubicles all day long.

[Furunculus]

Everyone says they are middle class, because they don't want to be at the "bottom". There is always the underclass too, which isn't mentioned on the charts which is the non-working classes. Only real classes are the people and the elites, the rest and there just to divide people.

upper middle i guess, though i'm not earning that kind of moiney atm.

[Lemur]

Division by class is an outdated concept, like thinking martians live on mars.

Well if the martians don't live on Mars, where do they live? Huh?

How much money does someone need to have/make before they are classified as 'rich'? Feel free to define this based on annual income, total assets, or any other method you want.

I think it's heavily dependent on where you live. San Francisco is the most expensive city in America, and I've heard reports of people making $60k being homeless. On the other hand, if you live in a little town like mine, you can feel like the king of the world for less than $100k per year. Highly variable.

However, if you have liquid assets in excess of $10m, you don't actually have to work anymore. That's rich enough.

[Sarmatian]

Just so you know, I'm writing all this down so that there's no surprises when I launch a worldwide communist revolution.

[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!

[KukriKhan]

Somewhere in that nebulous american grey area of "lower/working/middle" class. I'm about 6 paychecks (i.e. 3 months) away from homelessness, but with good job prospects, and an adequate, if not comfortable retirement looming (though I realize things could change in an instant).

I can only go back 2 generations: Gramps, a farmer, could read slowly, sign his name and 'figger' (no formal ed.). Pops, a welder/car worker, read the daily newspaper front-to-back (4th grade), could write if pushed, and do simple arithmetic. I, civil servant (11th grade, with some uni thrown in during army days), can often understand Louis', Banquo's & Adrian's posts, can construct a grammatically-correct paragraph or two, and have a nodding aquaintence with quadratic equations.

My kids (in their late 20's/30's) are a mixed bunch, all with high school and some uni. All literate and mathematically functional . I'm secretly saving up for the 2 grandsons and 1 nephew (ages 7,7, and 10), hoping any one of them shows interest in higher education. The first one who tells me: "Grampa, I wanna make a battery that saves and delivers energy on-demand, and lasts 20 years before recharging." Or "I think I've got a handle on cancer"... gets the Kukri-cache cash, miserable though it be.

So: Lower-class educationally, working class economically, with delusions and hopes of grandeur.

-edit-

I am a hobo and am only here because I stole a laptop from Curries

I think I wanna pick that one, but do not understand "Curries". A store?

[Whacker]

I would put myself squarely in the middle of middle class, same with my sister. I would put mom and dad in the upper-middle class though.

Given Beskar's chart, I fall into upper-middle class, and my parents are upper class. That's cool with me, seeing how they both started out as working class and by the time I came into the picture they were still working class. They busted their asses hard to get themselves where they are today and to give me and sis the education and opportunities we have now.

As much as we try to ignore it, classes/castes/stratification of society can and will always happen. There will always be the haves and have-nots and the inbetweeners.

Really though, it's about what makes you happy in life. Work toward what you want to do and where you want to be, and it shall be so. (I don't buy the 'I'm not smart enough' argument at all, that's BS and a huge cop out for 99.99999% of the people who use it)

[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).