It came up in a recent thread, but we’ve seen it many times before as rhetoric. What is the working class? I work, am I the working class? If so, I think there’re a whole bunch of people mouthing for the working class who don’t speak for me. Not in mname.y
Not in my name.
I think y’all probably got that part.
I think it stereotypically consists of people whose education doesn’t go beyond high school & who work in manufacturing jobs. Income ranges would probably be in the $9-14 an hour range.
In the UK, it goes a bit deeper than that - it’s where one is ‘from’ in terms of culture, accent, schooling, and upbringing. It’s something that is slowly evening out, but very, very slowly.
There’s also middle class (i.e. bourgeoise), and upper class (aristocracy).
One could be a Professor, Doctor, Lawyer, but still be ‘from the working class’ (one’s children would probably be middle class, however).
I would consider myself ‘working class’ as both my parents and grandparents are of modest means and all worked manual or menial jobs.
I was the first (and only to date) person in my extended family to attend University and to work in a ‘professional’ position. Go me.
If / when I have kids they would probably be considered ‘middle class’ due to there being 2.4 of them and because they live in surburbia and bring out the best china for the vicar.
Which is nice.
The Marxist definition is basically this:
Working class: someone who sells his/her labour.
Not-working class: everyone else.
So if you work for a salary, you’re working class. If you own the place, you’re not.
In the UK its definitely “where you are from” (as jjimm said).
I’d count myself as being pretty much the same as Aro -
my dad is a glazier and my mum is a teaching assistant. My grandfathers both worked in factories. i went to a comprehensive (although catholic) school and i was the first person in the history of my family to go to university.
so i’d say i’m “working class” (Although if you want to get picky, probably leaning towards “upper working class”).
If i ever have kids, however, they will probably be middle class.
I’m second generation lower middle class. Or maybe first generation, depending on how you’d view my parents. I know that if you considered my mother working class, she’d feel that she’d somehow Failed in Her Mission. 
My maternal grandparents are from the rural South West. Grandmother was a school kitchen supervisor, grandfather was an engineering technician. My paternal grandparents are from the urban East Midlands. My grandmother was a nursery nurse, and I think my grandfather was a factory worker (he died 27 years before I was born, so information I have on him is sketchy)
My mother is a teacher. She was educated in grammar school and went to art college before teacher training. My father is also a teacher. He was educated in grammar school, went to drama school and worked as actor before teacher training.
I am a sub-editor. I was educated in a comprehensive school and I went to a top university.
I have no idea where I’d come in this. My grandfather was a teacher, my grandmother a housewife. Both my parents work in factories (although my dad’s a qualified accountant whose qualifications aren’t recognised in the UK). I graduated from a top university, having gone to my local comprehensive school, and now am doing a PhD, and so am essentially a member of staff at a University.
So, I’d guess I was upper working class at this point…
Since everyone’s declaring their roots: by background I’d guess I’m lower-middle class.
I’m the product of an aspiring working class family (great-grandfather was a kiln maker; grandfather was a draughtsman; father is a doctor) and a upper-middle class colonial family (grandmother had 3 servants; mother had a nanny; I got a rock). I find it interesting that it was the social revolutions of the 20th century that brought my father’s side of the family up in status, and my mother’s side of the family down.
Socio-economically I’d put my upbringing (state school, comfortable childhood, but not well off by any means) at lower-middle.
And now I work in IT and live on a council estate, albeit in a private house. So I guess by lifestyle I’m also lower-middle.
I’m working class, I live in an Old industrial city (manchester) which has been past associated with strong trade unions, the blue collar slob, and the uneducated masses.
I live in a terraced house, with an former ouside toilet. 
Working class, I live in an area which is all hill farmers and coal miners. I also live in a terraced house, isn’t it great being able to hear your neighbours going up and down stairs;)
I just wanted to say it’s really interesting to see the difference in class definition between the US and UK.
In the US, a person’s class is determined by their current situation. If your parents were working class you might point to it as a matter of some pride that you have moved up into the middle class.
People in the US generally strive to be middle class and it’s actually rare for a person to admit to being upper class or rich since it’s seen as a little bit pretentious.
Hm, this seems to be an interesting difference between the US and the UK. I would say that in the US, there is less interest in where you are from and what your parents did. That is, if you are an adult and are a university graduate and do okay for yourself, no one would consider you to be working class, no matter what your parents do. On the other hand, I’m not sure if that goes the other way - if your parents are middle class, you probably would be too, even if you’re not wealthy.
I, you know, work, but I’m not working class. I’m middle class - my parents, and most of the adults I knew growing up, are university graduates. My dad is a lawyer. My parents own a home. I have a university degree, and although I’m pretty poor, I’m also young and supposedly have “prospects.”
By background, I’m working class (blue-collar parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc. They all worked in the railroad industry and didn’t go to college). But I suppose if you go by just me and not family, I would be some sort of middle class, since I’m getting a degree and could have a white-collar office job.
you are probably right - here in the UK it is very much “where you are from” and to be honest there are a lot of people who would proudly call themselves “working class” (probably myself included) because of their parents situation, since if they are successful then it means they’ve “pulled themselves up by their bootstraps” - i.e. been successful through their own efforts.
class in the uk is a tricky one - there are still a lot of beliefs and attitudes still attached to class and people can get caught off guard/feel uncomfortable when they don’t hold true.
As an example (and this is very crude politics), the working class have “traditionally” voted Labour whilst the middle to upper classes have voted Conservative (“Tory”), the following quote briefly describes John O’Farrell’s (a middle class labour supporter) experiences when young:
I have to agree that many people pretend to be less well-to-do than they actually are.
And, when others who are truly just scraping by complain about their situation to some of those higher-up on the socioeconomic ladder, the answer is frequently something like “We are all in the same boat. I know what it’s like.”, etc. I find this dishonest and annoying. People may downplay their wealth simply to spare the feelings of their less well-cushioned peers, but to me it always sounds like a veiled self-protective measure: If one admits to a poorer acquaintance or relative to being better off than they, they might want something from you! [Gasp!] Better pretend you are just as poor as they are even if you aren’t.
Case in point: I have an acquaintance whose favorite word is “poverty”. (“We can only afford to remodel one room at a time; poverty is horrible”. Yeah, pal, my hear is breaking.) She puts on this blue-collar routine that really puts me off, going on about the “little guy”, hanging up posters of Bruce Springsteen because he is “real” and so forth. The reality is that this person owns a house with a pool, travels overseas at least once a year, has savings in the bank, and stands to inherit half a million from her parents. When someone in that position says to some poor sucker who lives literally paycheck to paycheck that “we’re all in the same boat”, I frankly find this insulting.
Hmm… hard to say honestly whether I was “working class” or not. No question, i grew up in a blue collar neighborhood. And my grandparents certainly qualified as “working class” (my grandfather worked for the New York City subway system most of his life. But was I?
Not really. My parents were public school teachers, so we sure weren’t rich… but at the same time, they were well educated and highly cultured, and they made every effort to pass their education and culture on to their kids.
So, while I grew up in a working class setting and certainly didn’t have any more money than my working class neighbors (indeed, a blue collar union man probably made a good deal MORE money than my Dad), I never felt like part of the blue collar set, and neither did my brothers.
This is an interesting question, esp. these days. All 4 of my grandparents were immigrants who worked factory or crafts jobs for low wages. Neither of my parents went to college. My father started as a splicer for the utility company, and through years of slaving and working extra hours and shift work, managed, over the course of 40 years, to become a supervisor.
Dad put me through an Ivy League university, and now I’m a teacher. Ironically, with my Bachelors and 2 Masters make about 1/3 of what he made with only a high school diploma. I’m doing all right for myself, mostly b/c of the frugality and discipline he taught me, but I will never be as well-off as he is.
So what I am I? I feel middle class with working-class roots, but the money spends like working class these days.
Interesting take on different perceptions of class.
My mother was a school teacher; my father was an engineer w/ AT&T. My grandparents were cetainly solidly working class. One grandfather was a hardscrabble failed farmer; he lost the land, ran a very token wool and tobacco exchange but my grandmother actually kept the family going by running a boardinghouse. My other grandfather worked in a small family business building trucks in a little, southern Ohio river town; coal and mining country.
My father never went to college. The Great Depression ruined that one, even though he had a scholarship. He worked his way up by pure brain and hard work to a low-exec level. My mother worked her way through two university degrees.
I never heard either one of them express anything about what class they considered themselves to be, or wanted to be. Offhand, mostly they defined themselves as Depression/WWII era: work hard, save, be very wary of debt, etc. They were both very widely travelled and well read but neither of 'em gave a whoop about “stuff”, i.e. belongings as symbols, other than buying for need, paying cash and taking care of what they had. They both considered people who bought just for “show” to be fools. They both identified solidly with unions, even my very conservative, Republican dad. I don’t know what that made them.
This is more than a bit weird. I just realized I’ve never really thought about what class I fit into. I’m just me. I have to work to keep a roof over my head and food on my table, even though it’s work I often enjoy.
Suffering a sudden bout of mental whiplash,
Veb