Middle Class Overvalues
It is a staple of American politics that elected officials routinely frame their appeals to the “middle class.” The idea is simple: Since the vast majority of Americans consider themselves members of the middle class, it makes sense to use this label as shorthand for “people like you.” The practice of people locating themselves within a class structure – rather than being “assigned” to classes based on particular characteristics, such as income or occupation – is often called “subjective class identification.”
Now, I don’t know whether the daily use of the “middle class” appeal is smart politics (I assume it has been poll-tested and focus-grouped ad nauseum). But I can say that the underlying assumption – that virtually all Americans identify subjectively as middle class – is not correct. Or, more accurately, it depends on how you ask the question.
If you give people a three-category class structure (upper, middle, lower) in which they must place themselves, a huge plurality opts for the middle. On the other hand, in the simple tabulation below, I demonstrate what happens when you add a fourth category to the menu of options – “working class.” The data come from the General Social Survey (GSS) for 2010, and it’s a representative, unrestricted sample of all Americans over age 18. One of the survey questions is: “If you were asked to use one of four names for your social class, would you say you belong in: the lower class, the working class, the middle class, or the upper class?”
