Why are working class whites so often defined as "whites without a degree?"

[King of Kensington]

There isn't a perfect measure for class, but I don't see why can't surveys can't have questions for occupation.  Or something like the NRS social grade in the UK.

[Potus]

I know education has been a better indicator of social stature in my life. Both my father and uncle work jobs bringing significant amounts of money. My dad manages all IT at our hospital, biggest private source of good jobs. Uncle travels for work to supervise and inspect pipelining, welding, and that sort of thing. My uncle was a diehard Trump guy. My father wasn't a fan of either major candidate.

When I see resentment of the upper middle class, it's always guys like dad who don't obviously impact something being made but are still incredible valuable in production. I think the working class is more of a culture that prefers my uncle's work to my dad's work. That's why I think possession or lack thereof of a college degree is a solid indicator.

[Person Man]

In all seriousness, would a non-technical bachelor's not from a school with an exceptional reputation (need like 90th %tile grades and scores) alone still make the holder part of the "working class" now?

[Intell]

I know education has been a better indicator of social stature in my life. Both my father and uncle work jobs bringing significant amounts of money. My dad manages all IT at our hospital, biggest private source of good jobs. Uncle travels for work to supervise and inspect pipelining, welding, and that sort of thing. My uncle was a diehard Trump guy. My father wasn't a fan of either major candidate.

When I see resentment of the upper middle class, it's always guys like dad who don't obviously impact something being made but are still incredible valuable in production. I think the working class is more of a culture that prefers my uncle's work to my dad's work. That's why I think possession or lack thereof of a college degree is a solid indicator.

Question? Was your uncle always republican, and your father?

[RINO Tom]

There isn't a perfect measure for class, but I don't see why can't surveys can't have questions for occupation.  Or something like the NRS social grade in the UK.

Seriously.  I don't know why we magically decided that the "Blue Collar, Professional or White Collar" classifications didn't work!  Sorry, but I am not going to view a social worker with a master's degree and a $40,000 income as somehow more fortunate than the guy who's third in command at his construction company, never went to college but earns $90,000 per year (and yes, I know multiple people like this) just because the media needed to find a new way to make Democrats better people than Republicans.

[Potus]

I know education has been a better indicator of social stature in my life. Both my father and uncle work jobs bringing significant amounts of money. My dad manages all IT at our hospital, biggest private source of good jobs. Uncle travels for work to supervise and inspect pipelining, welding, and that sort of thing. My uncle was a diehard Trump guy. My father wasn't a fan of either major candidate.

When I see resentment of the upper middle class, it's always guys like dad who don't obviously impact something being made but are still incredible valuable in production. I think the working class is more of a culture that prefers my uncle's work to my dad's work. That's why I think possession or lack thereof of a college degree is a solid indicator.

Question? Was your uncle always republican, and your father?

My uncle was a Democrat, is now an Independent. Big Trump Guy. My father, and all of my family on my father's side, are all Republicans.

[RINO Tom]

I know education has been a better indicator of social stature in my life. Both my father and uncle work jobs bringing significant amounts of money. My dad manages all IT at our hospital, biggest private source of good jobs. Uncle travels for work to supervise and inspect pipelining, welding, and that sort of thing. My uncle was a diehard Trump guy. My father wasn't a fan of either major candidate.

When I see resentment of the upper middle class, it's always guys like dad who don't obviously impact something being made but are still incredible valuable in production. I think the working class is more of a culture that prefers my uncle's work to my dad's work. That's why I think possession or lack thereof of a college degree is a solid indicator.

Question? Was your uncle always republican, and your father?

My uncle was a Democrat, is now an Independent. Big Trump Guy. My father, and all of my family on my father's side, are all Republicans.

Wasn't there a time in the not-so-distant past where WV (registered) Democrats were arguably more socially conservative than WV (registered) Republicans?  I thought I remembered a poster here discussing that RE: primaries once.

[King of Kensington]

There isn't a perfect measure for class, but I don't see why can't surveys can't have questions for occupation.  Or something like the NRS social grade in the UK.

Seriously.  I don't know why we magically decided that the "Blue Collar, Professional or White Collar" classifications didn't work!  Sorry, but I am not going to view a social worker with a master's degree and a $40,000 income as somehow more fortunate than the guy who's third in command at his construction company, never went to college but earns $90,000 per year (and yes, I know multiple people like this) just because the media needed to find a new way to make Democrats better people than Republicans.

You make it sound like these definitions of "blue collar, professional, white collar" etc. were just created recently to discredit Republicans.

In the 1950s, the opposite would have been the case.  The lower paid white collar worker was more likely to vote Republican then while well-paid skilled blue collar workers would have been Democrats since they were the party of the "working man."

[RINO Tom]

There isn't a perfect measure for class, but I don't see why can't surveys can't have questions for occupation.  Or something like the NRS social grade in the UK.

Seriously.  I don't know why we magically decided that the "Blue Collar, Professional or White Collar" classifications didn't work!  Sorry, but I am not going to view a social worker with a master's degree and a $40,000 income as somehow more fortunate than the guy who's third in command at his construction company, never went to college but earns $90,000 per year (and yes, I know multiple people like this) just because the media needed to find a new way to make Democrats better people than Republicans.

You make it sound like these definitions of "blue collar, professional, white collar" etc. were just created recently to discredit Republicans.

In the 1950s, the opposite would have been the case.  The lower paid white collar worker was more likely to vote Republican then while well-paid skilled blue collar workers would have been Democrats since they were the party of the "working man."

They still are.  Anyway, created to discredit Republicans?  No, certainly not.  However, given that having a college degree in the 1950s was a VERY good indicator that you were White and fairly well off, it obviously had a higher correlation to being a Republican ... just as being White and wealthy does today.  Let's not act like the types of people who have comprised "college graduates" has remained the same all this time and they have just switched parties.  My point was that people holding lower-paid jobs are MUCH more likely to have a college degree now than they ever have been, and fields that already probably have a lot more Democrats in them than Republicans (education, social work, etc.) seem to require a degree - especially an advanced one - moreso than a lot of other fields, even if they pay less.  Using "having a college degree" as some mark of class to separate the parties (as Non Swing Voter masturbates to) is just stupid beyond belief.

[King of Kensington]

They still are.  Anyway, created to discredit Republicans?  No, certainly not.  However, given that having a college degree in the 1950s was a VERY good indicator that you were White and fairly well off, it obviously had a higher correlation to being a Republican ... just as being White and wealthy does today.  Let's not act like the types of people who have comprised "college graduates" has remained the same all this time and they have just switched parties.  My point was that people holding lower-paid jobs are MUCH more likely to have a college degree now than they ever have been, and fields that already probably have a lot more Democrats in them than Republicans (education, social work, etc.) seem to require a degree - especially an advanced one - moreso than a lot of other fields, even if they pay less.  Using "having a college degree" as some mark of class to separate the parties (as Non Swing Voter masturbates to) is just stupid beyond belief.

Oh OK, I see your point here.  Yes college graduates were much more of an "elite" when they were 5 or 10% of the population than are now with around 30%.

[JJC]

Because for some stupid reason American pundits have decided that education (instead of, you know, income or occupation) is the basis of class divisions. Which is ridiculous on so many levels.

^This

[Potus]

I know education has been a better indicator of social stature in my life. Both my father and uncle work jobs bringing significant amounts of money. My dad manages all IT at our hospital, biggest private source of good jobs. Uncle travels for work to supervise and inspect pipelining, welding, and that sort of thing. My uncle was a diehard Trump guy. My father wasn't a fan of either major candidate.

When I see resentment of the upper middle class, it's always guys like dad who don't obviously impact something being made but are still incredible valuable in production. I think the working class is more of a culture that prefers my uncle's work to my dad's work. That's why I think possession or lack thereof of a college degree is a solid indicator.

Question? Was your uncle always republican, and your father?

My uncle was a Democrat, is now an Independent. Big Trump Guy. My father, and all of my family on my father's side, are all Republicans.

Wasn't there a time in the not-so-distant past where WV (registered) Democrats were arguably more socially conservative than WV (registered) Republicans?  I thought I remembered a poster here discussing that RE: primaries once.

I don't think I ever said that, but I think you are talking about a post I made saying that an establishment R candidate could win a closed primary in West Virginia in years past. There's a long story associated with that.

[Person Man]

Manchin and Capito might swap places in the nomination of  the SCOTUS pick viewed as the one who will vote to overturn Roe v Wade?

[angus]

Why are working class whites so often defined as "whites without a degree?"

I haven't noticed that they were.  I have seen the phrase "whites without a degree" in polling articles, etc., but I haven't seen articles that conflate that term with "working class whites."  I had always assumed that the phrase "whites without a degree" simply means people of Indo-Aryan (and perhaps Hamito-Semitic) stock who have not graduated from a four-year college or university.

Where have you seen articles that conflate those two phrases?

[Torie]

Some define class more based on values and life style rather than money. In fact, that is the definition that I prefer. To take an extreme example, some chap with a graduate degree in some non remunerative field, not making much money, and perhaps in a job not related to his or her degree, I just don't think of as working class. That just seems absurd to me. The point is, that a college degree has something to do with one's values and world view, consumption preferences and so forth.

I still remember my marketing class in business school where the professor talked about class preferences in furniture. The working class wants durability, the lower middle class likes conventional stuff that is "respectable" (e.g., those horrible matching sets of furniture for bedrooms), and the upper middle class likes high style and creative eclecticism (having an interior decorator involved is even better).

[angus]

Some define class more based on values and life style rather than money.

Of course.  Especially the middle class.  Those of us who call ourselves "middle-class families" span all five economic quintiles.   It has little to do with money, and everything to do with a value system.  I was surprised to learn some time ago that based on our household income, we are about midway in the highest quintile for a family of three.  Also, when I take the on-line "are you middle class" quiz I always get the answer "no, you are not middle class."  It's a silly quiz because it is based entirely on income.  I wash my own dishes, cook my own meals, book my own flights, drive myself in a car, I work for a living and if I didn't I would starve.  I always consider myself "middle class" and when I hear the term I know it applies to me and to my family.

Most terms involving "class" are bandied about, carelessly used, and are really context-specific.  No need to argue about their use, especially when considering the United States because we do not have, and have never had, "classes" in the historical sense.  We are not like India.  Nor are we like pre-Revolutionary Russia, nor like China before the Boxer rebellion, nor are we like England before the 1920s.  Those places all had classes, in the real sense, and it had little to do with money.  By and large, the aristocrats were richer than others, but this was not the case invariably.  Some in the Third Estate were quite wealthy, for example, and many aristocrats were very poor (in the sense of income) but each knew his place in society.

Also, the term "working class" has always been a bit of a misnomer for US people, especially given our lack of a historical aristocracy.  At least 98% of us work for a living, or depend upon someone who works for a living.  Very few are in the true leisure class so it doesn't make sense to use the phrase "working class" here and now.  In fact, 40 years ago it wasn't used much.  When I was young, and when you were young as you probably recall, we used the terms Blue-Collar worker and White-Collar worker.  These terms made sense at that time.  You and I would be considered White-Collar workers, but we still work.  Still, since manufacturing and heavy industry has all but left our shores owing to the cheaper labor elsewhere, those terms no longer make much sense either.  Most of the uneducated now work in retail or service-related industry, and as you point out, many people with graduate degrees in the humanities are serving drinks to drunks, so even blue- and white-collar workers are no longer easily identified.

Still, none of this has anything to do with the phrase "whites without a degree."  That term is self-explanatory and, as far as I can tell, does not attempt to subsume any other term and is used primarily by pollsters who want to be specific about the demographic group to which they are referring.  I don't see any problem with its use in that regard.

[King of Kensington]

Some define class more based on values and life style rather than money. In fact, that is the definition that I prefer. To take an extreme example, some chap with a graduate degree in some non remunerative field, not making much money, and perhaps in a job not related to his or her degree, I just don't think of as working class. That just seems absurd to me. The point is, that a college degree has something to do with one's values and world view, consumption preferences and so forth.

I like George Orwell's term "lower upper middle class."  He meant it in a different sense of his own background, but in today's terms it is a farily apt term for those with jobs with social prestige that don't pay much.  Adjunct faculty*, some people working at nonprofits and artists etc.

* Yeah, I know the universities have been "proletarianized." 

[Meclazine for Israel]

In Australia, regardless of ethnic background:

Working Class = No Degree
White Collar = Degree
Blue Collar = No degree

Strangely enough, some of the most successful business people I know in Perth have no degree.

And they all have one thing in common, they like Donald Trump.

[Intell]

In Australia, regardless of ethnic background:

Working Class = No Degree
White Collar = Degree
Blue Collar = No degree

Strangely enough, some of the most successful business people I know in Perth have no degree.

And they all have one thing in common, they like Donald Trump.

Working class is normally based upon the job you have, with some consideration for income level . Normally also TAFE vs Uni, plays an aspect in class.

[King of Kensington]

"Working class" is a separate class from "blue collar"?

[Pericles]

Education not income decided who voted for Trump. Non college-educated whites is a more accurate description of Trump supporters than white working class. See here: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/education-not-income-predicted-who-would-vote-for-trump/

[pbrower2a]

The lack of a college degree for someone between the ages of 25 and 65 typically implies "working class". People with college degrees may often hold working-class jobs, but but they have the possibility of joining the middle class as  people without degrees rarely have.  In any event there is often a sharp cultural divide between those with college degrees  and those without, as in musical tastes, spending habits, and attitudes toward education for the kids. Such reflects itself in political values.

[morgieb]

"Working class" is a separate class from "blue collar"?

Well, there are blue collar people that are actually quite wealthy now. Tradies, for example.

[King of Kensington]

"Working class" is a separate class from "blue collar"?

Well, there are blue collar people that are actually quite wealthy now. Tradies, for example.

Wealthy tradespeople are generally small business owners not those working for someone else.  It also strikes me as strange that the term blue collar = just the "royalty" of the blue collar world.

[King of Kensington]

Lots of non-working class jobs where many don't have a college degree:  many managers, real estate agents, police officers etc.

https://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_111.htm