What Class do you consider yourself to be?

we don't have class in america

working class FTW because all those privately schooled ILXorz went on a scholarship, duh

we don't have class in america

And the streets are paved with cheese.

No wait...

Where is actual-middle-class?

Actually no, it was smart to leave that out, or else everyone in the entire US would pick it

i went for 'aristocracy'

depends on what you mean. if we're talking about my parents (and btw, i do not have a trust fund), i'd say upper-middle class. they also don't give me any money at this point (yes they did pay for the schooling). and judging from the fact that i pretty much eat eggs, bread, and steal prepackaged ham and cheese to survive is a good indicator of where i am at the moment.

Demigod

What do you bread, table? (haha sorry)

I put upper-middle class based on how I grew up. My parents weren't rolling in it or anything - they drove a ford taurus and a nissan sentra and we had a modest-sized house I went to public schools, but I grew up in an affluent area and had a lot of things I consider privileges, and I was able to go to a public college without taking loans or working the whole time.

Also I'm probably going to law school.

HIGH class

Rogue

Chaotic neutral.

that's alignment, dude

Assassin

We were heading down that path anyway, max.

Beginning Typing

Or maybe French 3

The different classes can be arranged into four boat types:

* Dinghy: Finn, Europe, Laser, 49er and 470.
Sailors steer dinghies using a rudder and the crew use their body weight to counterbalance the forces developed by the sail and their common characteristic are lifting centreboards.

The Finn, Europe and Laser have a single sail, while the 470 class has a two-sail rig. Both the 470s and the 49ers also have an additional sail for downwind, called a spinnaker.

* Keelboats: Yngling and Star.
They have a fin fixed below the hull - otherwise known as the keel - while the Yngling boat also has a spinnaker.

* Catamarans: Tornado.
These are twin-hulled boats with a centreboard and a rudder on each hull, a two-sail rig and a mainsail.

* Mistral: Mistral sailboard.
A type of windsurfer, consisting of a board with a mast and a sail. The sailor controls the mast with their arms and steers in a standing position, moving body weight to guide the vessel.

ohio class, motherfucker.

Destroyer

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/images/alfa-DNSC8205636.JPG

Isn't middle-middle class an option, Ed?!

got no

I thought about it but I thought it's not that commonly used. xpost

I am upper middle class through and through really.

came up lower middle. now working.

Issaquah 130

No class.

http://www.campaignbadges.co.uk/mixed%20as%20gif/class%20war.GIF

I'm currently offering two classes, both for undergraduates:

Introduction to Literary Study
Milton in Debate

yeah I'm not sure how I would fit into this... to me, "upper-middle" suggests a household income close to or in the lower reaches of the six-figure range. Is "lower-middle" anything $80K and under?** That certainly isn't how I think of it. I could be way off-base here with these numbers.

**these figures would obviously be adjusted for cost of living wrt region/ number of dependents in household, etc...

working

working

who will choose "underclass"

Based on reading the recent batch of class war threads, being a statistics nerd, and curiosity after getting W2s in the mail yesterday for the first full year of "real" jobs, I found this last night:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States

Lowest fifth $0
Second fifth $18,500
Middle fifth $34,738
Fourth fifth $55,331
Highest fifth $88,030
Top 5% $157,176

It says the New York Times refers to these quintiles as lower class, lower middle class, middle class, upper middle class, and upper class.

Those numbers are the lower limit in terms of income, by the way.

according to that i'm practically lower middle class o_O

All told I think I still came in a tick under the second fifth in 2007

same here

doing it real big

pre-taxes >:(

according to that, our little household is upper middle class... it also means that most other couples we know (married or living together)are upper class. seems fishy to me.

class is about more than income.

breeding, darling.

That is a national average. New York, will have higher thresholds. Income and net worth are only par tof what goes to make up class, though.

xpost

also nyc income vs most other places income no?
xpost!

I've noticed different class-identities within blood-related families

NY City NY State U.S.
Median household income (1999) $38,293 $43,393 $41,994

but doesn't really all the boundaries

upper middle class all the way, and I still get to wear jeans and doc martens to work

creative class not an option?

I'll go upper middle too, cause someone has to inherit my family's piece of the pie.

xp: I would compare creative class to working class--both have far more cultural tags than economic tags.

poor monarchy me

my ermine cape is in tatters

monarchy for me. obv.

http://www.orderhiphop.com/images/t.i.king.jpg

By the way, these numbers are for households, not individuals.

Median household income: $48,201.00
Median personal income (over 18): $25,149
Median personal income (over 25): $32,140

Ed (or anyone else) - How would you define 'working' v 'lower middle' v 'upper middle'? (In Britain, that is, not in America where it just seems to be a question of income)

I am...

THE LANDED GENTRY

– coming Spring 2008 –

This lie has not yet been rated

Actually my parents both started out really poor.

My MOM started working before it was even legal for her to, at age 14, making less than minimum wage so she could buy things like a sewing machine to make clothes for her younger siblings. (This is in the '70s, not say the 1940s.) Her dad had those kind of jobs insane alcoholics have, like "I keep pigs and bees in my tiny yard," and "I collect coins and try to convince pawn shops they're worth more than they are." All living in a one-bedroom house, seven people. Obv could not afford to go to college, tho she is very smart.

My DAD got his college paid for by the government, but only because his father got killed by a nuclear fallout in Idaho. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to afford college, especially since it was just his mom working at the post office to take care of him & his 3 siblings.

And my dad got his degree in accounting, and worked for the IRS for a while. That paid well, but then he quit, thinking he could get an equally good-paying job at someplace less hellish. He isn't a CPA, so he's spent most of the years roofing houses or doing handyman type work as an independent contractor.

They have a nice two-story house, but only because they built it themselves. Not like "Flip That House" shit but seriously, both of them pouring the fucking foundation together, putting up the framing and drywall, and all the electric and plumbing. Basically the only thing they didn't do was texturing the ceilings and installing the carpet.

So my parents are pretty much the classic "we worked our fucking asses off and got something because we were always working of our goddamn asses (and we work hard)" type. I'm the oldest, so I feel like I grew up pretty poor – my youngest brother was ages one-four while I was 11-14 while my parents built the house. During that time, all seven of us (and some baby ostriches!) lived in a two-bedroom trailer on the propety behind the construction. Cars0n doesn't remember that, whereas that was pretty much my junior high.

I've had to pay for all my college and everything I own myself because 1. my parents don't have the money to help, really, and 2. if they did they would fucking make me do the same thing they did. So...that's the kind of mentality and life I was raised with. I would say right now that I am poor and I think my assessment is fair.

I mean if I hadn't have moved to a town where I can get my meds for free (they cost more than our combined rent!), I would probably be on the street bcz can't get a job bcz no meds & bonkers & job would not pay for meds/home.

God, I'm just saying too much here. :( QUIET IN THE LIBRARY, ABBOTT.

OK WTF is with DG, does he think that people who say they went to public school on a scholarship are lying or what? He made that comment on the other thread as well.

FWIW I'm going for lower middle.

lol I need to "let go" of this. Just fed up cos I've had a load of friends from lower middle class/upper working class families, all of whom were much wealthier than me or my family, giving me shit for going to public school, but that was years ago. Get a grip, me.

I am working for a living. If you call this living. Therefore.

To ring the changes on an earlier answer: dreadnought.

Technocrat. My robots do most of my work while I kick it in my Arcology, learning stuff, drinking fine liquors, and working 4 hours a week -- as is my quota.

Upper middle class. Although the people with whom I went to school were predominantly upper class.

Working class by birth, upwardly mobile though.

middle middle, so not voting (i'm def not lower middle, and i guess upper middle => public school to me, for instance).

dad=working class
mom=middle middle class

me? probably upper/middle middle class

My robots do most of my work while I kick it in my Arcology, learning stuff, drinking fine liquors, and working 4 hours a week -- as is my quota

lol at this being any semblance of what the information society has brought us

i'm in a class of my own

it's a special ed class, i think

working, but I would like to take a step closer to underclass, whatever that is. I just don't spend that much. I think beer is my biggest expense at $20-$40 a week. america needs to get civilized and have a 30-hour work week.

no option for "drunken"

Lower middle, I guess. Don't really care.

nobody's said lawful neutral yet?

wait that was alignment. cleric then

lol @ 'creative class'

Disappointed at the lack of response from underclass ILXors

I voted working class on the basis that I've never earned what most people in their 20s or above would consider a decent amount of money, and grew up in a house w/ mum and stepdad either on the dole or doing crappy jobs for crappy wage. OTOH I've seen it put about that having gone to university automatically confers middle class status on you, for example, which is kinda the point where I think, fuck it why even bother trying to reach any sort of consensus on what these terms mean

i think this needed middle-middle class option tbqh.

xpost

The upshot of that logic is that working class people can't have a university education tho isn't it? Fuck that patronising bullshit.

middle middle class, pfft, seems like an unnecessary fidelity to me.

"Middle Class" should have been an option

Lower-middle class, even by the standards of this poll, seems a very outdated term

The upshot of that logic is that working class people can't have a university education tho isn't it? Fuck that patronising bullshit.

-- Noodle Vague, Saturday, January 19, 2008 11:54 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

ehhhhh... social mobility innit. obviously individual cases vary and you don't/can't leave everything behind from upbringing but still.

There ought to be somewhere for that Upper Working Class/Lower Middle Class realm tho. I guess Upper Working Class is also becoming redundant cos of the adoption of Underclass tho.

Skilled workers vs. unskilled workers? Meant something when Britain had a manufacturing industry.

there are also regional variations, i'd've thought -- linked to skilled/unskilled/service industry lol (xpost).

According to wikipedia, I grew up upper-middle class, which they say ranges from the high 5 figures for a single-income household into the lower 6 figures. However, many of my friends from high school self-identified as upper-middle and they had much more wealth than we did.

Right now, I consider myself working class. I'm broke to the dirt.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/88/Working_class_dog.jpg

multi xpost

But trying to be scrupulously honest I would say that the fact I was able to go to University hasn't had a huge influence on my class. Certainly less than the kinds of jobs I've done, most of which I could've done without fucking up 3 years at Uni. From at least the Fifties onwards the Media and the entertainment industries and the Arts have been full of displaced persons like me, who acquire or adopt bits of middle class culture without completely shaking off the underlying working class upbringing even sometimes when you try really hard to do that. I tend to think of it as me being still on the edges of working classness, but the kids more or less being somewhere in the middle class.

Standard "this is all amorphous subjectivity disclaimers" apply.

Regions, industries, yeah. My dad was skilled engineering sector, a lot of my mum's family from manual unskilled backgrounds. Even as a little kid before I knew what any of this stuff meant I was aware of tensions in my dad's attitude to her family.

(I meant to specify I only mention the Arts/entertainment thing cos so many great British books/plays/telly shows/musics of those last 60 years have been informed by this dishonest rootless feeling, I think)

Skills are just as vital as ever in this 'knowledge economy', surely?

Like a lot of others these days, I probably fit into the category of 'knowledge worker' - operating nothing more sophisticated that a pc at work, but utilising a knowledge of economics, policy skills,'political antennae', and an understanding of a network of people/resources.

I don't miss the dignity of labour around some manufactured product.

(I meant to specify I only mention the Arts/entertainment thing cos so many great British books/plays/telly shows/musics of those last 60 years have been informed by this dishonest rootless feeling, I think)

-- Noodle Vague, Saturday, January 19, 2008 12:11 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

trudat -- dennis potter and whatnot. alan bennett.

Alan Bennett? How? Fairly and squarely middle class surely?

But trying to be scrupulously honest I would say that the fact I was able to go to University hasn't had a huge influence on my class. Certainly less than the kinds of jobs I've done, most of which I could've done without fucking up 3 years at Uni. From at least the Fifties onwards the Media and the entertainment industries and the Arts have been full of displaced persons like me, who acquire or adopt bits of middle class culture without completely shaking off the underlying working class upbringing even sometimes when you try really hard to do that.

OTM, this is basically what I wanted to try and articulate

Alan Bennett is self identifying lower middle class

yeah

Exactly what I said, middle class

lol I think Bennett is alright. A lot of his work is tackling the same stuff as the social realists but from the other direction. Dad was a butcher? That's not proper middle middle class I reckon.

I'm wasn't criticising him! Background not unlike Thatcher's?

"Well-to-do" shopkeeper?

Probably not far off eh? Obvious argument to be made that the Tory party needed a vulgar go-getter from the aspiring lower middle class to break out of their post-Macmillan nap.

Ted Heath!

Ted was more like the Grammar School oik desperate to prove he knew which fork to use at dinner, right?

Ed (or anyone else) - How would you define 'working' v 'lower middle' v 'upper middle'? (In Britain, that is, not in America where it just seems to be a question of income)

Still need an answer to this.

I thought we could do a whole other thread on that once people had finished self identifying. Note the thread title.

Upper working class = skilled manual, lower middle class = clerical.

ie ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NRS_social_grade

(though lol at nurse being considered solid B)

What, no landed gentry?

"Only around 2% of the UK population identifies itself as upper class,[2] and this group is not included in the classification scheme."

I thought we could do a whole other thread on that once people had finished self identifying. Note the thread title.

please gawd noooo. hasn't it been done to death on ILX already? discussing class here is terrible because the range represented is so narrow (well, inevitably)

yeah, it's really not about income in the uk, unless you come from monied lineage. can someone assess me please? never thought about it in this much detail. is which newspaper you read a good clue or a red herring?

family background:
dad = comprehensive school headteacher, mam = primary school teacher. i went to the schools they worked in. grandparents on both sides definitely working class. grew up in working class and poor area in south wales valleys, we were better off than most people there. we had tons and tons of books spanning several centuries and many genres - milton to airport trash to sci-fi-to modern lit to science/nature to philosophy. as well as a kickarse rock and pop record collection from around 1960 up to around 1980, there were classical and opera records in the house, they weren't played as much as the others but they were played, mostly by my dad. ridiculed for liking classical music when i was 7 or 8, didn't really get why. we took probably three holidays a year, to france (camping for a month every summer), lake district (visiting maternal grandparents, climbing hills, skating on frozen tarns), generic resorts eg tenerife/gran canaria/the algarve, once to scotland, once to florida for disneyworld etc. i remember being 6 or 7 and another girl saying her mum had called her "mrs news of the world" for gossiping, she thought this was hilarious, i didn't understand and had to ask why. the newspaper we got in our house was the sunday times, i still do not understand why. sometimes we went to the cinema, usually to see the big film of the moment. no pets.

other:
applied and got in to united world college rather than staying home to do a levels (this is scholarship-based, though they do ask your parents to contribute if they can. i am sure mine will have done, i don't know how much). went to uni (in another working class and fairly poor area), this was before they made it fee-paying, i did not have to work to support myself. i did take out a loan two of the years (didn't need it to live, wanted it to buy records, go out, travel to other towns for gigs), none of which i have paid off yet. came to london in summer 1999, working in music industry. first job paid £9,360. second job started at £10,400 and rose over five or six years to £11,440, at some point while i was there i started getting my travelcard (around £80pcm) paid for me too. as of one year ago i'm on £22k and i feel loaded! read the guardian on the internets. last two holidays = went to rome for a weekend to see sonic youth in july, to dublin with friends for 4 days in october. i live in one of london's (and the uk's i think) poorest boroughs, in a cheap but nice rented flat. i have no savings.

is which newspaper you read a good clue or a red herring?

I'm pretty sure there's not been a British paper that, big scare quotes, "represents" the working class in any meaningful way. Certainly not in my lifetime. So, red herring

I'm pretty sure there's not been a British paper that, big scare quotes, "represents" the working class in any meaningful way. Certainly not in my lifetime. So, red herring

-- DJ Mencap, Saturday, 19 January 2008 14:07 (5 minutes ago) Link

Pre-Piers Mirror?

but groups of papers - maybe i mean buy, rather than read. does anyone other than working class buy tabloids? anyone other than upper middle/upper buy daily mail? i do not know the answers, these are not meant to be rhetorical questions. i know 3 ppl who buy tabloids, only one of them gets defensive about it. guardian means nothing i think. i'll read anything i find but would never buy tabloid or daily mail or telegraph (mostly as do not want to support the perpetuation of evil, rather than think i am above it or something), occasionally buy indy/guardian/obs for long train journeys.

LMC would buy both redtops and Daily Mail (i speak from experience ha)

actually i'm not sure i ever did buy them myself (def not the Mail) and i probably wouldn't have at any point, they were just purchased by relatives or colleagues a lot.

(do people you stacked shelves with in the local supermarket count as 'colleagues'?)

can someone assess me please?

nouveau pauvre - not a bad thing to be at all if you value what you're doing with the majority of your time above simply making money.

Tabloids are read by people who are not that bothered about reading uh 'hard' news surely? Which is something I'd say cuts across the classes totally. I guess more than ever these days there's a lot of froth and quasi-tabloid type content in the broadsheets, either way I've never thought of the Sun as a paper 'for' the working class. Re: the Mail - there's an almost-stereotype of an old woman in a council flat who's voted Labour all her life and still buys the Mail cos of habit, or cos it's stuck several decades in the past, or both these things

emsk - i would say middle middle! family background sounds pretty similar to mine tbh.

I'm a social worker. That's Aristocracy, right?

i know 3 ppl who buy tabloids, only one of them gets defensive about it.

:-)

i'm solid upper middle. that's it really

Mine is too confused for me to easily self-identify - I plumped for 'lower middle' because none of the others feel right. Mother from a pretty dead-on middle class family (although her father's family were v. poor that may have been the Depression). Father's family pretty well off in West Africa, came over here as refugees in the 60s upon which they were considered pretty much below working class. Parents now both in teaching.

Me = comprehensive school + university education, management-level job, no debt but no real savings either, rented house that costs much less than it should in area that is pretty much the definition of upper middle-class.

Family = upper middle-class, but based on current lifestyle and (negative) income and fundamental ideological differences w/ aforementioned family = I have no idea what I am.

To me, upper class is the same as aristocratic. If you're not in some titled family, then you're just upper-middle-class.

Knows all the words to Black Lace's "I Am the Music Man" = still WC for life, bitchez.

True working class dance routine:

Clap your hands and bend your knees in time to the music.
Sleep - Hands together - as in prayer - right side of face then left. Bend head sideways.
Wave - Hands in the air - wave from side to side.
Hitch a Ride - First right hand then left. Hitch a ride (over shoulder).
Sneeze - First right hand then left - index finger under nose - say 'Atchoo!' x 4.
Walk - 4 steps forward, 4 steps backwards.
Swim - First right arm then left - as in crawl.
Ski - Hands together - ski - first right side then left.
Spray - First right arm then left in the air - as if spraying deodorant under arm.
Macho - Flex arm muscles as he-man - first right arm then left.
Horn - Hands together in front - press downward motion - make sound of horn.
Bells - First right hand then left in the air pulling on supposed rope-bell.
O.K. - First right hand then left - make O.K. sign with thumb and index finger.
Kiss - First right hand then left - blow kisses.
Comb Hair - First right hand then left - comb hair.
Wave - Hands in the air - wave from side to side.
Wave - As above.
Superman - Right arm in the air as in Superman - 4 steps forward. Shout 'Whoa!'.
Each exercise is done 4 times in time to the music except in the last round when it is only done twice.
Have a great time

We did that one too, dude. Friend's son's birthday party, upstairs in pub, randomers getting down to the Black Lace, three C classic.

Sadly no "We're Having a Gang Bang" but it was a kids party so best not probly.

i like the sound of nouveau pauvre!

i know 3 ppl who buy tabloids, only one of them gets defensive about it.

:-)

-- CharlieNo4, Saturday, January 19, 2008 4:09 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

yes you were one of the 3 i was thinking of, and not the one who gets defensive..

Upper Working Class

Polls presenting a set of choices should not begin with 'what.'

^ this makes me upper middle class

upper west side

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

http://hardcore4life.imeem.com/music/WxG5C27F/7_seconds_no_class_no_way/

i come from a working class background but have ascended to lower middle class. weee.

my grandpappy was a coalminer

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I chose upper middle but only because I'm surrounded by BOGANS.

I really find it hard to say what class I am... Based on my family and where I grew up I'm working class, but my studying for a degree at the university could mean I'm upper middle class, and the job I currently have is lower middle class (though it's only a part-time job to support my studies). Then again if you look at my income and possessions I'm definitely below middle-class, but that might obviously change after I graduate. I ended up picking working class, but I could've easily chosen lower middle class as well.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/3adgnk/american-nepo-babies-have-nothing-on-the-british

Nice enough piece on what we already know.

Druid I guess?