Which of These Social Classes Do You Consider Yourself a Part Of?

[angus]

Choose all the apply.

I voted for working class, middle class, and upper middle class. 

I'm not sure how all these are defined though.  I know that my wife and I both work, so working class fits.  Also, we're not rich and we're not poor, so middle class fits.  I also selected upper middle based on income.  Our combined household income is in the upper quintile, so some might want to modify the "middle class" label with "upper."  I'm okay with either one, as long as the word "middle" is in there somewhere.

How does one define these terms?  Wikipedia has an extremely long article on "American Middle Class" and it deals with value systems, educational levels, and income.  By its description, my guess is that about 99% of those who post on this forum can find a way to fit into it.  Money magazine has a nine-question quiz designed to let you know if you're in the middle class.  President Obama used the term "middle class" seven times in his most recent SOTU address.  John Boehner uses the phrase at least that many times every day.  USAToday writes that although "no one can really agree exactly" on what it means, it's a matter of income and attitude.  In fact, apparently it is mostly attitude that defines the middle class.

[angus]

I've been reading about this.  (yeah, all of the sudden I'm a goddamned expert)

Apparently class is a very vague construct in the United States, and everybody wants to identify with the amorphous middle.  In this poll, 38 have voted, and there are 47 votes for terms with the word middle in there somewhere.  Apparently by the year 1913, there were more Americans identifying as "middle class" than as "lower class" and more than "upper class" as well. 

It's not just an American phenom either.  Apparently in the UK, 75% of the people now self-identify as "middle class."  Tony Blair repurposed his party as "New Labour" in order to better capture the votes of these new "middle class" voters.  In Germany, where once even well-paid, white-collar workers were proud to call themselves proletarian and eschew the Mittlestandes label, about 60% of the population now considers itself middle class.  However, that number is down from the nearly 70% who considered themselves middle class in the 1990s.  A sign of the times, I suppose.

Even in Mexico, where perhaps the term encompasses a broader income range than in the United States because it emphasizes urbanity over a pastoral existence, the middle class label is borne with pride.  According to Luis Rubio, president of the Center of Research for Development of Mexico, the middle class in Mexico consists of people whose incomes range from several deciles below the median to the top decile.  The matter is further complicated by household sizes, which have a much broader range in Mexico than in the United States.  Nevertheless, a whopping 75% of all Mexicans describe themselves as a part of la clase media. 

This is not true in France, however.  A report published last year in Paris showed that only 48% of people consider themselves middle class, compared with 52% in 2010.  Bourgeois, moi?  Non!  This is particularly surprising to me since the middle class in France dominates the culture more so even than in the UK, where movies and television more often portrays the lower classes and their values.  Maybe it's cultural.  Maybe the bourgeoisie who drove Le Terreur of the 1790s still haunt the collective French memory. 

[angus]

It is a sure sign the you are upper middle class if you are sitting there typing, wearing only your underwear, your glasses, and five days worth of beard stubble, while drinking cheap vodka straight, at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, from a McDonald's Happy Meal cup that once contained your son's Orange Fanta, and occasionally picking bits of the microwaveable burrito that you at for lunch from your teeth with a folded up piece of cellophane from a cigarette package. 

[angus]

Living the dream?

Haha.  I actually put on a shirt about 20 minutes ago.  It was getting a little cold.  Probably I should turn up the thermostat. 

I must admit that the vodka's not bad with just a hint of artificial orange flavoring. 

[angus]

I'm thinking that the Fried Coke that what's his name posted might not be bad with a splash of Wild Turkey.  Nothing spells class like a flask full of Wild Turkey surreptitiously spirited into the county fairgrounds in the sock, expressly for the purpose of spiking one's Fried Coke lunch. 

I guess I'm going to have to limit myself to one early-afternoon cocktail since it's my turn to ferry the boy home from school, so the Turkey & Coke will have to wait.