Middle Class? Low Class? NO class?

[SoCalDem]

Most people you talk to daily, still consider themselves "middle class"...but what exactly IS middle class?

Middle class, to me at least, means you make enough to be "comfortable".

It means you can go to the grocery store without that unpleasant knot in the stomach when the cashier announces what you owe.

It means that when the electric bill arrives, you don't have to sit down with a bottle of tranquilizers before you open it.

It means that your house-payment is affordable (less than 1/3 of your take home pay)

It means that you have a savings account for emergencies.

It means that you can raise a child or two, and know that when the time comes, they WILL be able to go to college without having to apply for every funky $250 scholarship on-line.

It means that if the car breaks down, you can get it fixed, and still be able to eat that month.

It means that you can plan a family vacation every year, and actually GO.

It means that you can take your kid or yourself to a doctor when necessary.

It means that your kids get to go on field trips, even if they cost money.

It means that you can count on not running out of money before you run out of month.

It means that you don't HAVE to use credit cards, because your bank account is empty.

My uneducated guess is that more middles are actually "lower" these days, but no one dares to think of themselves as "low class"..

Even "lower-middle" just sounds bad. It feels like you might soon lose the "middle".. that you are trending downward.

America has always pretended to be a classless society, but we all know better.. We learn that in grade school. Everyone automatically "measures" their family against families of the other kids, and many of us grow up feeling insecure, and feeling like our own families don't quite measure up to those of our friends..

We all think that once we arrive at "middle-classiness", we will be OK. If your feet are firmly planted in middle-class-land, you can always aspire to get to a higher class, but no one ever plans to go lower.

We have always been hopeful, but it's becoming a painful reality, that our expectations are not all that great anymore.

More and more of us actually expect to be poor or poorer.

Confidence built our country, won our wars, made us what we are, and as we hemorrhage confidence, it's not surprising that we are turning on each other, as we flail around looking for some one, something to blame for our suffering.

[fascisthunter]

1. That's What I Thought It Meant

which is why I consider myself to be in the low class...

[SoCalDem]

2. aaaw

:hug:

[fascisthunter]

4. It's All Good

I have a heart of gold, and when people get to really know me, they realize fast that I am generous with what little I have. My parents inspired me...

:pals:

[Sugar Smack]

3. Paul Fussell wrote a book called "Class" in 1982,

and it's still applicable today. I defy ANYONE to deny we have a class system here. The taboo of discussing it is simply amazing to me.

It seems to me at this point in history that your description would envelop upper-middle, just because my (poorish & poor-middle) frame of reference is limited to only some of those. Yours was a great post, by the way. Recommending.:-)

[Manifestor_of_Light]

5. CLASS is a fabulous book.

It has hilarious illustrations of things like "prole jacket-gap" (used car salesman has gap between shirt collar and jacket of his suit).

Apparently I have upper-middle class values (really into culture & education), and was raised on a lower-middle class income.

Fussell talks about how Old Money inherits its houses, furniture and clothes, such as cashmere coats and strings of pearls, and New Money is flashy and wants the new, rather than valuing the old. So I must be Old Money. I inherited a cashmere coat and a string of pearls.

I have an upper-middle class education, and no job and no health insurance. So what the hell does that mean? :wtf:

[SoCalDem]

7. It just means that most people live outside their means, and

no matter how hard to try or how much education you have, it's still mostly luck and nepotism that moves people forward.. The rest of us just stay on our little treadmills and hope they don't go faster than we can keep up :)

[earth mom]

6. K & R. nt