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#Middle class definition full

They also tend to have low levels of education. People in this group typically have blue-collar jobs – the kind where you work with your hands – and are paid on an hourly rather than a salaried basis. However, it also says the middle class includes three subcategories: The article classifies Americans into three broad groups: the poor, the middle class, and the wealthy. News & World Report shows how there could actually be some overlap between their differing definitions. However, a 2012 story about the American class system from U.S. On the surface, it sounds like these two news outlets are directly contradicting each other.

The Star-Ledger, a New Jersey newspaper, frames this as a story about “the casualty rate in the war against the American middle class.” By contrast, The Christian Science Monitor describes the group featured in the study as “white, working-class Americans in red states.”

The study found that mortality was on the rise among middle-aged, non-Hispanic white Americans – particularly those with no education beyond high school. To see how media views of the middle class vary, consider the way two different news outlets treated a story about a 2015 study conducted at Princeton University. Opinion polls are even murkier, with people at different income levels having vastly different views about who is and who isn’t middle class. News stories that talk about the middle class – usually in combination with words like “squeezed,” “burdened,” or “vanishing” – often tie the term to income, but their actual numbers vary. Just do an Internet search on the phrase “middle class,” and you can easily see that not everyone agrees on what it means. The closest the paper could come to a definition was to say that social class involves “a combination of income, education, wealth and occupation” – and every one of these factors plays a role in defining who the middle class is and what it needs.

#Middle class definition how to

They talk in general terms about “ordinary Americans” or “working families,” but they seldom offer a clear-cut definition of what these groups look like. And when they do try – for example, when presidential candidate Hillary Clinton promised during the 2015 Democratic debates that she wouldn’t raise taxes on households with incomes below $250,000 – their views are often attacked as unrealistic.Īctually, it’s hardly surprising that politicians have difficultly figuring out how to define the middle class. Social class in America is an incredibly complex subject – so complex that reporters from the The New York Times devoted more than a year to exploring it without coming to any firm conclusions. However, what politicians aren’t always so clear about is just who is in the middle class they’re so eager to save.

Politicians fall over each other to offer solutions, promising everything from tax reform to better schools to “save the middle class.” Story after story talks about how jobs are disappearing, prices are rising, and many essentials, such as healthcare and education, are growing steadily more expensive and harder to afford.

#Middle class definition full

The news is full of stories about how tough times are for the middle class.