Middle Class
A Middle Class is a social class composed of Middle Income Households and/or Middle Wealth Households.
- Example(s):
- Counter-Example(s):
- See: Per Capita Income, Per Capita GDP, Household Class, Social Hierarchy, Social Status, Petite Bourgeoisie, Socioeconomic Status.
References
2021
- (Wikipedia, 2021) ⇒ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/middle_class Retrieved:2021-3-15.
- The middle class is a class of people in the middle of a social hierarchy. Its usage has often been vague whether defined in terms of occupation, income, education or social status. The definition by any author is often chosen for political connotations. Modern social theorists — and especially economists — have defined and re-defined the term "middle class" in order to serve their particular social or political ends.
Within capitalism, middle-class initially referred to the bourgeoisie;as distinct from the nobility, then with the further differentiation of classes as capitalist societies developed to the degree where the 'capitalist' became the new ruling class, the term came instead to be synonymous with petite bourgeoisie.
The common measures of what constitutes middle class vary significantly among cultures. On the one hand, the term can be viewed primarily in terms of socioeconomic status. One of the narrowest definitions limits it to those in the middle fifth of the nation's income ladder. A wider characterization includes everyone but the poorest 20% and the wealthiest 20%. [1] Some theories like "Paradox of Interest", use decile groups and wealth distribution data to determine the size and wealth share of the middle class. In modern American vernacular, the term middle class is most often used as a self-description by those persons whom academics and Marxists would otherwise identify as the working class, which are below both the upper class and the true middle class, but above those in poverty. This leads to considerable ambiguity over the meaning of the term middle class in American usage. Sociologists such as Dennis Gilbert and Joseph Kahl see this American self-described middle class (working class) as the most populous class in the United States.
In 1977 Barbara Ehrenreichand her then husband John defined a new class in the United States as "salaried menial workers who do not own the means of production and whose major function in the social division of labor ... [is] ... the reproduction of capitalist culture and capitalist class relations;" the Ehrenreichs named this group the "professional-managerial class".
There has been significant global middle-class growth over time. In February 2009, The Economist asserted that over half of the world's population belonged to the middle class, as a result of rapid growth in emerging countries. It characterized the middle class as having a reasonable amount of discretionary income, so that they do not live from hand-to-mouth as the poor do, and defined it as beginning at the point where people have roughly a third of their income left for discretionary spending after paying for basic food and shelter.
- The middle class is a class of people in the middle of a social hierarchy. Its usage has often been vague whether defined in terms of occupation, income, education or social status. The definition by any author is often chosen for political connotations. Modern social theorists — and especially economists — have defined and re-defined the term "middle class" in order to serve their particular social or political ends.
2010
- (Wolff, 2010) ⇒ Edward N Wolff. (2010). “Recent Trends in Household Wealth in the United States: Rising Debt and the Middle-class Squeeze-an Update to 2007." Levy Economics Institute Working Papers Series.
- QUOTE: Indebtedness, which fell substantially during the late 1990s, skyrocketed in the early and mid-aughts; among the middle class, the debt-to-income ratio reached its highest level in 24 years. … The other big story was household debt, particularly that of the middle class, which skyrocketed during these years, as we shall see below.
2000
- (Sullivan et al., 2000) ⇒ Teresa A Sullivan, Elizabeth Warren, and Jay Lawrence Westbrook. (2000). “The Fragile Middle Class: Americans in Debt." Yale University Press. ISBN:0300091710
- QUOTE: … the authors discover that financial stability for many middle-class Americans is all too fragile. The authors consider the changing cultural & economic factors that threaten financial security & what they imply for the future vitality of the middle class.