Middle class

"Middle class". What does this mean in the UK these days?

Judging from the Sunday Times (which I only read because it's better value for money than the European issue Guardian or Independent ), people who are middle class do the following:
- drink wine with their meals
- enjoy holidays in Tuscany
- have a holiday home in the country
- drive 4x4s
- send their children to music lessons and ballet (girls) or tennis (boys)
- employ an au pair or a nanny
- eat organic food
- buy their clothes from Boden

Now, I always liked to think I was middle class (in a non-snobby way) because I have a white-collar job, but the impression given by the newspaper is denting my confidence. I can't relate to the journalists' description of middle-class. Can anyone give me some reassurance that I haven't slipped down the social ladder?

That's the problem, everyone THINKS they're middle class...even those that are damn near bums.

In the U.S., to claim middle class, even in the midwest, your income better be at least $60,000...total household income of say $80,000...imo. I'm not middle class, I'm working class, which might be why I listen to punk music and drink beer rather than wine normally.

I'm sure someone will soon google some stats for the UK and maybe more exact stats for the U.S., it's been a few years since I've looked at the numbers.

Interesting question and I'll try and reply tomorrow when we in Bavaria are...not working.

In the US, according to my sociology classes, there is no real middle class, but everyone identifies as middle class, even people on welfare and multimillionares.

I think the description in the opening post describes upper middle class. I would hazzard a guess that most people here are probably lower middle class

mmhhh, although I don't think that the drinking wine bit in the list can really be used to distinguish anymore. Everyone drinks it really as it can work out cheaper! Or perhaps it's necessary to re-word it to something like, wine bought at a wineshop or wine above £x.

I don't think the middle class is easily distinguishable and agree with Owain that there are different levels of middle class. No idea.

@Lorelei: Its depressing as I can only subscribe to the first item on your list.

Your profile doesnt tell anything - its custom here to supply at least SOME information.

speak for yourself OG. I'm petit bourgeois. Well maybe Bildungsbürgertum at a stretch...

Its not an 'oliday opp 'ere

Would be easier if they added a few more bits


by the bottle each? or just sip at a different glass per course?

I would follow what OG said. But the while class reference chart is confused anyway. But the general rule is, if you are worried about class you're probably middle class.

Isn't buckie a wine (albeit fortified)

I thought the class society was scrapped under Thatcher.
Anyway, you are not a class, you either have class or don't.

Those income figures are very relative to location and circumstances.

$80,000 goes pretty far in places like Dallas, Milwauke, and Phoenix. But try living well on it in New York or Los Angeles. I cannot speak for the UK, but I would imagine Newcastle is a bit cheaper than London.

Likewise, a single guy can scrape by on 80K in most places, but try supporting a few kids on it.

Middle class, in income terms, is a vast landscape situated between Donald Trump and the typical street hustler in Havana.

Yes Lady thatcher (god bless her iron underwear) did her best to shake the dusty bones of our pathetic class fixacted society. It helped that she got rid of working class slavery and allowed us to think about using our brains! She did more for the advancement of the working classes than any other social hippie before or after.

anyway manners maketh the man.

Tell that to someone in an ex steel town working in a frigging call center for thruppence a week!

Can never resist the chance to have a poke at Gideon!

I think it was society she scrapped. But the poll tax was certainly classless.

Tell that to a man whose uncle recieved third degree burns to his leg in a steel plant but was too scared to take proper recovery time in case he lost his job. Bloody dangerous crap paid jobs with draconian managment mate. All you socialists are the same. Bloody middle classes lamenting and romatisising the loss of the most horrible and phsicaly degrading jobs. I've yet to meet anyone form the Pits who hand on heart is not unhappy that their kids do not have to go down on them.

Southern Socialists... Can never resist to poke at 'em.

@ Monkstown
Can never resist the chance to have a poke at Gideon!

A what! From you! On this forum! With gideon!
There's no sex here, thank you very much.

(Peter Cook)

Part of the whole thing is how the nature of work the working class do in "post-industrial" societies has changed.
Laters taters anyway, got get me a skates on for a date tonight.

Ah lads, will yis relax, I have to go home and shave me Dads yacht for him.

Does that just sound slightly 'rude' to me?!

Idiots thinking they're middle class gave us Bush for president. It's ok to accept that you're working your way to a better future but you're not there yet.

The book 'Watching the English' has some brilliant observations about the British class system.
I was going to copy out a few of my favourites but I can't find the book, must have lent it to someone (feckin hate when I can't remember where books go). Anyway, if you're curious about how the classes perceive each other and where you might slot in - it's a very funny but serious analysis of Brit class and culture.

Middle class in the UK generally means taking out huge debts against the 'profit' made by your house to buy shite to keep up with your equally indebted neighbours.

You also have to commute for about 2 hours everyday and can't afford to have children.

Can a person change "classes" during their lifetime? I mean, some people are well-off and then become poor, or vice versa.

You can take the girl out of the bush, but you can´t take the bush out of the girl?

Wouldn´t it be more like "You can take the bush off the girl, but you can´t take the girl off the bush"?

I´m sure I don´t know

I guess that makes me boureoise grosse. Immer groesser given the amount of sausage I've been putting away lately...

Hm. Double entendre unintended.

Total Bullshit with a capitol "B"!

What you drink has zero to do with class.
Tuscany has zero to do with class.
If you have a holiday home, then you are above middle class.
4X4's are driven by wankers and have nothing to do with class. It does however have to do with penis envy.
So now being a good parent is classified. That is such bullshit.
Again, having an Au Pair or a Nanny is a bit more than middle class.
Middle class eats well, only stuck up wankers eat organic food and the majority of them don't even know what organic means.
I would hazard a guess that only wannabes buy shit from Boden simply to think they are middle class. In fact, they have no class!

Middle Class is an economic term. The only thing that decides this is the amount of money one earns. It has nothing to do with how you live or what the fuck you spend your money on. Only a moronic asshole would try to equate a social status with a economic one based only on one aspect.

One thing we do know about the state of the younger middle class in the US is that their financial situation seems to be slipping compared to the previous generation.

You're full of the capital B too. Class can be broken down into economic and social. The two overlap but economic class has nothing to do with social standing.

There are a lot of overpaid blue collar workers in the US, or at least were, who would never be called middle class. Money does not maketh the man.

Whether you like it or not, the US is an extremely class based society. Always has been, always will be.

Ten years ago in a Sociology class I already learned that my generation will be the first in the US which will not do better, in general, than its parents did. Rather dreary prospects...

In the UK, there used to be a pretty good test to see if someone was working class or middle class.

You would just say, "Mu-nuh, mu-nuh" and see if they answered with "De-doo-de-doo-doo" and if they did they were working class. If they looked at you like you were from Mars, they were middle class.

Yeah right, by making them all unemployed!

If "class" was referring only to financial status then yes. But as it should refer to education, background, cultural awareness and ancestory then...no, it can't change.

Although, I believe that the rare individual, who came from a low class background but possesses unique emotional intelligence and a high IQ along with a certain temperment and drive to succeed as well as the intuitive ability further develop himself/herself..can. But these people are 1 in a million...if even that.

Wow, Saint, so you think lower class people are less intelligent? Less developed?

Did I say that? I said to change truly class, (not only economic standing) requires a very specific combination of traits.

If you want to understand a bit more about the situation in low class households read Freakonomics.

Read your post -- the rare individual from a lower class background who has emotional and book intelligence and works hard can develop himself...

I think it´s extremely difficult to define most people´s classes. Unless all your ancestors always married someone on exactly the same level as they were, which I think is highly unlikely.

I don't need to read my post as I wrote it.
IQ is not only "book intelligence" and emotional intelligence is highly important for a person from a low class background to over come many of the obstacles that said background places before him.

Have you spent much time in slums in America? Worked with children from truly low-class backgrounds like immigrants with parents who can not read? I have. They (and their development as children) are affected and influenced by more than household economics.

If such a person economically succeeds, they are still tied to family and acquaintances with belief systems and behaviours that have been moulded by their social standing and societies perspective.


Well, since you are speaking of ancestory (the past) people in the past did marry within their class much more often than not. In modern America "class" is a transmutable concept, without defined borders. Someone can go from bus driver to movie star..or from stripper to married to an 80 year old billionaire. Money certainly didn't change Anna Nichole Smith's class. Do you think that her emotional intelligence, IQ, temperment and background may have had something to do with that?

That put me well above the riff-raff then

Hmm. I am curious though about it though. Why those words? Does that come from somewhere or what's the origin?!

I read that, and thought it was a spoof, not a genuine thesis by a professional anthropologist. It seems to me to be written totally from the viewpoint of a south-east england middle class denizen whose view of Yorkshire, say, is on the distant horizon. Nice observation about Whitby goths though; one guy totally gothed up is wearing a tee-shirt which says 'Goth', "just in case it wasn't apparent"!

If you're referring to "Mu-nuh, mu-nuh" then that's from a Muppets song that was a hit in the UK in the seventies see this link to Wikipedia Mah Nà Mah Nà Damn, knowing that means I'm working class, not Upper as I think I am when I go to The Lords to vote.

Ditto!

Thanks Serenissima - that was what I was referring to. Thanks for clearing that up...I had no idea, but then I think that's more down to the fact that I wasn't alive in the 70s...

Ouch!
Yes I was alive then.
Yes we did sing it in the playground.
Yes I guess I am working class!

I knew it as well, which considering I'm at work today, like I am every week day, makes me working class. I don't have a problem with that, I'd love to be "bone idle, lots of money, don't have to do much"class, but sadly I have to work for a living.

“Money is related to class only in the minds of people who have too much of the former, too little of the latter or none of either�
-Doug Robarchek