stOr@ Drive

[Victor]

This is an interesting point, because IMO it appears to be something of
a Marxist/Weberian distinction--there is an implication in it that
"working" means blue collar (or lower). There are several SES
distinguishing criteria that *might* play into this, including the skill
set (manufacturing blue collar vs. service vs. low-rank white collar),
education and income. There has certainly been a lot of reporting (as in
"journalism") on "decline of lower middle class" as represented by
auto-workers in Michigan (and, occasionally, in other states). The same
phrasing has entered political discourse as well. And auto-workers used
to make more money than teachers, who are (absent a much larger second
income) unquestionably middle class. One also has to wonder if the
"working poor" (as opposed to unemployed poor) is a part of the "working
class". I am wondering if these categories are actually orthogonal
rather than parallel. If "middle class" is usually defined by income and
"working class" by skill-set and [relative lack of] education, it is
understandable how a particular neighborhood can have both and yet have
the two somewhat distinct. But if one tries to make a rank order out of
it, it becomes a muddle, a lot like the fruit/vegetable distinction for
tomatoes (two distinct glosses for "fruit").

Others, of course, would disagree...

http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/is_there_a_standard_accepted_definition_of.html
http://www.answers.com/topic/middle-class
http://www.answers.com/topic/working-class

    VS-)

James A. Landau <JJJRLandau at netscape.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 18 Jul 2009 at the almost witchng hour of 11:03:26 Zulu minus 0700
> Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at STANFORD.EDU> wrote:
>
>
>> <snip> but a significant number of my neighbors were lower middle class (and
>> some working class).
>>
>
> The distinction between "lower middle class" and "working class" quite escapes me.
>

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