United States
Class in the US, featuring occupational descriptions by Thompson & Hickey as well as US Census Bureau data pertaining to personal income and educational attainment for those age 25 or older.
Class in the US, featuring occupational descriptions by Thompson & Hickey as well as US Census Bureau data pertaining to personal income and educational attainment for those age 25 or older.[6][11][4]
Main article: Social class in the United States
The social structure of the United States is a vaguely defined concept which includes several commonly used terms that use educational attainment, income and occupational prestige as the main determinants of class. While it is possible to create dozens of social classes within the confines of American society, most Americans employ a six or five class system. The most commonly applied class concepts used in regards to contemporary American society are:[6]
* Upper class; Those with great influence, wealth and prestige. Members of this group tend to act as the grand-conceptualizers and have tremendous influence of the nation's institutions.
* Upper middle class; The upper middle class consists of white collar professionals with advanced post-secondary educational degrees and comfortable personal incomes. Upper middle class professionals have large amounts of autonomy in the workplace and therefore enjoy high job satisfaction. In terms of income and considering the 15% figure used by Thompson, Hickey and Gilber, upper middle class professionals earn roughly $62,500 or more and tend to reside in households with six figure incomes.[3][6][12]
* (Lower) middle class; Semi-professionals, non-retail salespersons and craftsmen who have some college education. Out-sourcing tends to be a prominent problem among those in this class who often suffer from a lack of job security.[6][13] Households in this class may need two income earners to make ends meet and therefore may have household incomes rivaling the personal incomes of upper middle class professionals such as attorneys.[13]
* Working class; According to some experts such Michael Zweig, this class may constitute the majority of Americans and include those otherwise referred to as lower middle.[14] It includes blue as well as white collar workers who have relatively low personal incomes and lack college degrees with many being among the 45% of Americans who have never attended college.[6]
* Lower class; This class includes the poor, alienated and marginalized members of society. While most individuals in this class work, they commonly drift in and out of poverty throughout the year.[6]
[edit] Marxist
An Industrial Worker capitalist class critique
An Industrial Worker capitalist class critique
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