Do you consider yourself to be working class? Why or why not?

[The Wandering Harper]

this question was inspired by this OP
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100219750111

[JT45242]

1. I was in college...but once I graduated, even when I made working class money

I was a school teacher for twenty years. Even when I made less than a lot of blue collar working class (first ten years until I had a masters plus 15 column), I was a white collar worker. I wore a tie every day except spirit days. Being a teacher was respected. Even when I had full time summer jobs because teaching didn't pay enough, that was blue collar work to make the down payment on the house or to pay for the wedding. At the end of the summer, I could leave the restaurant, factory, warehouse or whatever.

In college, yes I was working class with a goal to move to educated class.

In coll

[Americanme]

2. I do consider myself working class

I retired last year after working for 43 years, the last 37 years at a utility. I made a 6 figure income, retired with a pension and a 401(k), thanks to my union. I worked long hours, sometimes up to 100 hours in a week. Mandatory on-call, mandatory overtime. I came home dirty and tired every night. I know I am working class.

[LogDog75]

3. What is "working class?"

For me, working class is anyone working in a non-technical/non-educational occupation, not in a management/ownership position, and whose wages/salaries is below the average middle class worker.

As for myself, I'm retired from the AF but as I progressed up the enlisted ranks I went from working class to middle class. I consider myself, today, to be middle class.

[proud patriot]

4. I consider myself working class

did 2 years of JC in early childhood education.

worked since I was 13 yrs old starting at $2 an hour babbysitting.

I've never made more than $19 an hour and that was the top out at my
paraprofession career working for a school district .

currently 55 yrs old and know I'll be working til I die even if only working
a few days a week .

I have a small pension that I'm putting off collecting on so I can get more benefit
when I'm older . I have and even smaller annuity .

I'm on the aca

[wintemark]

7. You are an angel

my sister recently started working as a para at our hometown elementary school. She also works nights at an Adult Foster Care home. The stuff she has to deal with... good grief. (The government rules and crappy AFC home owners, like Michigan does have a really good system for mentally and other wise disable people but a lot of the people that own and operate those places are purely in it for the money at the expense of residents quality of life.)

[proud patriot]

13. it may not be rewarding with money but

it was an extremely rewarding career . making a difference in people's lives especially kids
is fullfilling .

[Susan Calvin]

5. Yes.

Because I couldn't live on the interest from my savings.

[tonkatoy8888]

8. Absolutely

If you work for money instead of your money working for you, you're working class. It doesn't matter if you're a warehouse worker, a teacher, a physician, a millionaire professional athlete. Anyone who gets paid for their work is working class.
The sooner upper income people realize that they aren't "rich", the better off we'll be. Highly paid professionals need to realize they have more in common with the retail worker at Costco than they do with the truly wealthy billionaire class.

[yardwork]

10. This!

[The Wandering Harper]

9. that's directly in line with an intriguing and concise definition I encountered recently

working class is anyone not leisure class

[misanthrope]

6. I am lower socio-economic class

That's all that really matters.

[FirstLight]

11. Lower...

I'm 55, a student, and disabled. I'm probably the bottom of the barrel compared to most at least that's how 'they' would see it...

😒

[buzzycrumbhunger]

12. I used to...

… but I think I’m actually more the working poor.

[KentuckyWoman]

14. Working class is in my DNA

We both grew up in coal country on small generational farms. We bartered. We fixed broken things to resell. We cut evergreens for Christmas wreaths to sell to the rich people in Lexington. He fixed wells and cars. He fixed furniture and did carpentry. Anything he could find. He was a handy fellow to have around.

I sold the extra eggs, crafted with the odd pieces left of broken things. Waited tables, did mending and ironing, cleaned wherever was dirty - Anything I could find.

In my 40s I got my accounting class and started doing peoples taxes. The owner of the gas station hired me and liked my work. Gave my name to someone else... by the time I was 50 I was doing pretty good with taxes... but that is seasonal so I still did all the other stuff. Eventually I had my own little business. When I retired I had a few people working for me and signed the business over to them as an employee owned endeavor. They are still going strong.... though TurboTax and what not has changed the business quite a lot.

[Akacia]

15. I was working class as a preschool teacher even with a B.A.

but I loved the work. There was so much joy in watching children figure it all out and having those "Aha"
moments. I say was because I am retired but concerned I might have to go back to work if social security is cut back. I am 68 now and physically cannot do the work I used to do.

[Beastly Boy]

16. "Working class" is so last century!

Technically, a salaried CEO hired by an Exxon board of directors is working class, and a pizza maker around the corner is an owner of the means of production of pizza and is therefore not working class.

The whole notion of “working class” is a remnant of the outdated Marxist nomenclature of the 19th century. A more realistic division among classes would be in terms of disposable income one has, not whether one works for someone else.

And it’s a scale rather than a division into separate classes.