History /
The British Royal Family and Poland: Any connection? [70]
What Americans refer to as middle class is what British people refer to as working class
There's no simple alignment....
Some years ago I worked out a simplified taxonomy of social class in the US (primarily for whites though generally applies to other groups)
Wealthy class: The one percent, have no contact with other classes except as employees. Wealth from finance and/or corporate activity.
Upper class: professionals such as doctors and lawyers, show status through philanthropy (esp cultural) mostly don't use government services. Despite material success, often in debt.
Middle class: Tend to own their own homes (and both spouses work) children go to college, mostly engaged in office work and/or middle management.
Working class: mostly work in jobs supervised by the middle class, less likely to attend college
Lower class: (aka precariat) low skill and low paying jobs (fast food, cleaning, construction) often qualify for government support
Underclass: rarely employed and often de facto homeless, drug abuse and other forms of dysfunction are common
(a finer grain analysis is also possible but this works as a general orientation...)
The thing is that in the US, everybody from the upper to working class (and sometimes even lower class) tend to think and refer to themselves as 'middle class'...
What's the UK class structure (simplified and/or generalized)?
