General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsI wish the Dems and liberal pundits would use the term "working class" rather than "middle class."
Its much more all encompassing. There are many working poor/blue collar families out there (I came from one)who need help and are far from in the middle class.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)yeoman6987
(14,449 posts)The poor get welfare assistance and the rich get loopholes. The Middle Class get nothing. The Working Class would include rich and poor since they work too.
Brickbat
(19,339 posts)BlindTiresias
(1,563 posts)They do not give a crap about the working class, they really are just talking about working professionals/small business owners.
RiverLover
(7,830 posts)When we had plenty of factories and unions.
But here's one guy who said this this week~
http://www.masslive.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/12/elizabeth_warren_aflcio_national_summit_on_wages.html
Curmudgeoness
(18,219 posts)I am not poor, but I am not skating through life either. When I think of "middle class", I think of the people who are doing well, but are not "wealthy". In my eyes, it is those people who can afford to golf, and send their kids to private schools (even if they are not the most expensive ones), and buy those nice new houses in the better neighborhoods.
There are a lot more of us who are "working class". We cannot afford to eat if we don't work every week. We get ulcers about utility bills as opposed to the credit card bills because we bought too many $200 shoes last month. Agh.
BillZBubb
(10,650 posts)by a wide margin, considered themselves middle class.
Politicians adopted it because then is was the most inclusive.
Maybe, given the shrinking middle class, using working class would be better. But, as someone above stated, then the Democrats would actually have to address working class issues head on.
Kalidurga
(14,177 posts)where for every adult there are two jobs.
Dont call me Shirley
(10,998 posts)grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)TheKentuckian
(25,029 posts)I consider a trick to herd the population to support the interests of the upper crust.
kelliekat44
(7,759 posts)Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)Its a "middle class lifestyle" funded by debt. Most people have few assets that would make them really truly middle class.
daredtowork
(3,732 posts)This has been the rallying call for years, but the problem is it doesn't rally people to anything except outraged editorials: the "shrinking middle class" just doesn't get alarmed enough to actually do anything to stop from shrinking. All they do is complain about it.
But on top of that there is the insidious implied "other" of the lower class. You can't have a "middle" class without that implied "lower" class: the class of people that you are superior to, better than, and can lord it over just by virtue of your display of a successful lifestyle. The lower class are the modern stand in for servants: they do the manual labor. They serve the food. They take care of your personal bodily needs. They park your car. They sweep the streets. They clean the office. They take care of the kids while the middle class mom works. They take the service positions.
The lower class enables the middle class. And they should just be grateful they have a job. While "we" are rethinking this country's tax structure, and what "we" can afford during the GOP Congress, "we" will probably decide not everyone is meant for college. Someone has to fill all those lower class roles. We don't want those immigrants coming to take American jobs in dish-washing and retail-cashiering. We need an American lower class to take those jobs and hold aloft a healthy and happy middle class: that's how we will measure the strength of America as a Nation!
For Christ's sake, why does no one from High Academia to the NYT Punditocracy see how FULL OF SUCK that idea is???!!!
Seriously? We the people NEED to exploit and prey on a lower class to be "America"?
Dudes. No.
And by the way, those you are positing as your lower class servants hear what you've been saying.
Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)They certainly overlap at a point - but working class generally refers to blue collar workers who are a lost job away from working poor. They probably own their home, and generally live in central or working class neighborhoods of American cities and a few suburbs. Middle class folk, tho, often live in the suburbs and further from the central city of a U.S. city. They often work white collar jobs and aren't nearly at the door of poor as those working class folks.
Growing up, I was working class - not middle class. You could tell the difference. My grandparents, though, were middle class - and you could tell.
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)...and that the the term "working class" is Treasonous Commie Talk.
grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)TexasMommaWithAHat
(3,212 posts)The middle class is where we were supposed to have some security, and where you weren't supposed to have to work three jobs to make ends meet.
We were the first generation to get there.
lonestarnot
(77,097 posts)and peeps that work for a living.
Donald Ian Rankin
(13,598 posts)If you want to communicate meaningful information, rather than make high-sounding speeches, you need terms like "those earning less than $25,000 per year" or "married couples with a joint income between $50,000 and $75,000", I think.