Social Class: How do you know what social class do you belong to?

[Anonymous]

Using myself as an example. Immigrant that has been in the States for 25 years now. When I was a kid growing up my father was in a profession that was pretty high status. We lived in beautiful homes in posh neighborhoods around the world and attending private school with children of government officials, CEOs, and the global elite.

However my father was self made and did not have any generational wealth. His chosen profession, although prestigious and elevated our family status and lifestyle, was not something like investment banking where you can amass a lot of wealth.

So when he retired...our lifestyle shifted dramatically. So here we are my siblings and I, literally with champagne tastes and beer budget if you will.

2 of them married rich so because of our lifestyle growing up, easily and smoothly integrated into the upper class families of their spouses.

The other two of us are UMC/MC professionals. We are pretty class conscious and class confused.

Wonder if anyone has been through something similar and has any advice.

[Anonymous]

You most definitely belong to the "dumb class." Who the hell worries about stuff like this?

[Anonymous]

I've literally never thought about this

[Anonymous]

Americans don't think about this.

[Anonymous]

We don't have social classes here. Now you know.

[Anonymous]

The top indicator is that people who need to dump on internet strangers are definitely low-class.

But seriously, OP, I'm interested in what context you're thinking about class. It's different in the modern US than most of the world, and definitely different than any time in history. The US is incredibly porous in terms of class. A combination of money and certain behaviors and appearance traits (and the avoidance of others) can catapault a person and their family from the lowest class (impoverished, uneducated, lacking social cues) into the very highest.

For example, a person who says they've "literally never thought about it" is someone who is unaware of the research around and ramifications of social dynamics in America, and therefore likely not very well read, or very limited in intellectual scope. There are hundreds of books on the subject, thousands of think-pieces, and some very real-world effects.

[Anonymous]

This isn't a social class issue, this is a wanting more issue. If you wanted to return to your early life status in terms of housing, opportunities, income, you needed to have married and gotten jobs that put you in that position. Just as your sisters have. This sounds as if you are envious of where your sisters are now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We don't have social classes here. Now you know.

Don’t listen to this idiot who claims that there are no social classes in the USA. There most definitely are.

The answer for OP is to either make more money or start adapting to the experience of being lower class.

[Anonymous]

You most definitely belong to the "dumb class." Who the hell worries about stuff like this?

NP. Please do a search for social class on DCUM. It is a constant, chronic worry here.

[Anonymous]

Here's how I think of it:

If you don't have access to sufficient funds to provide for basic needs, you're poor.

If you earn money but live paycheck to paycheck, you're working class.

If you are primarily a wage earner but own a home and are able to financially prioritize things like health and your kids' education, you're middle class.

If your money makes money for you, i.e. you live off capital instead of wage earnings, you're rich.

There are a million different varieties here that Americans spend a lot of time bickering over, because we don't have the kind of social consistency of class that exists in other countries. That's mostly a good thing, but it also means that a wealthy person can put on a cowboy hat, call himself working class, and claim that a single mother working paycheck to paycheck as a nurse is not because she makes a low six figure salary.

[Anonymous]

None of this will matter once we finally eliminate income inequality completely.

It’s the number 1 problem facing the U.S. today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Americans don't think about this.

lol. You must be new here. DCUM is OBSESSED with this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Using myself as an example. Immigrant that has been in the States for 25 years now. When I was a kid growing up my father was in a profession that was pretty high status. We lived in beautiful homes in posh neighborhoods around the world and attending private school with children of government officials, CEOs, and the global elite.

However my father was self made and did not have any generational wealth. His chosen profession, although prestigious and elevated our family status and lifestyle, was not something like investment banking where you can amass a lot of wealth.

So when he retired...our lifestyle shifted dramatically. So here we are my siblings and I, literally with champagne tastes and beer budget if you will.

2 of them married rich so because of our lifestyle growing up, easily and smoothly integrated into the upper class families of their spouses.

The other two of us are UMC/MC professionals. We are pretty class conscious and class confused.

Wonder if anyone has been through something similar and has any advice.

In America, you have the opportunity to decide what class you are in. If you believe it, you're in it. It's not externally imposed on you like everywhere else. It's why everyone immigrates here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Using myself as an example. Immigrant that has been in the States for 25 years now. When I was a kid growing up my father was in a profession that was pretty high status. We lived in beautiful homes in posh neighborhoods around the world and attending private school with children of government officials, CEOs, and the global elite.

However my father was self made and did not have any generational wealth. His chosen profession, although prestigious and elevated our family status and lifestyle, was not something like investment banking where you can amass a lot of wealth.

So when he retired...our lifestyle shifted dramatically. So here we are my siblings and I, literally with champagne tastes and beer budget if you will.

2 of them married rich so because of our lifestyle growing up, easily and smoothly integrated into the upper class families of their spouses.

The other two of us are UMC/MC professionals. We are pretty class conscious and class confused.

Wonder if anyone has been through something similar and has any advice.

In America, you have the opportunity to decide what class you are in. If you believe it, you're in it. It's not externally imposed on you like everywhere else. It's why everyone immigrates here.

+1. There are many people in America who have lots of money but no class; while there are many who are very poor but have a lot of class. Class is decided by how you conduct yourself.

[Anonymous]

People who think class is either your manners, or a rigid social hierarchy from the classist societies of the past are both missing the point. Modern class is not about who your great grandparents were or how nice you are to other people.

Modern class is really the socio-economic cultural group you belong to. The PP who commented people can decide what class they want to be part of is correct up to a point, you can seemingly be part of your preferred socio-economic group as long as 1) you can afford it and 2) you adhere to its rules and expectations. Examples of socio-economic cultural groups:

Country club Republicans /SEC fraternities and sororities in the South

NYT/NPR/canvas tote bags/Brooklyn fetishers and their followers nationally

Self driven corporate executives and professionals in groomed newer suburbia

Rural and small town working class whites

Urban poor African Americans

Bicoastal upper middle class liberal white women with advanced degrees

Affluent self made new money California and Florida.

Upper middle to upper class black professionals

This short list of examples shows the US compromises of many disparate socio-economic cultural groups. But they do not fall into pecking orders with implications of hierarchies of superiority and inferiority, because none of the groups defers to any others but lives wholly to themselves.