Which class do you consider yourself to be a part of?

[Better Believe It]

Poll question: Which class do you consider yourself to be a part of?

I'll try posting this poll again.

It just disappeared a few minutes after being posted!

Not sure why or how that happened.

[xmas74]

1. Poor working class here.

I work for my poverty wages.

[baldguy]

3. And I bet you work 1000% harder than the CEOs who get million dollar bonuses.

Welcome to the club, brother.

[Better Believe It]

5. That's a safe and winning bet.

[xmas74]

14. I'd agree with that assessment.

I'm on my feet all day long, one short break daily, putting up with crap from customers. Then I get to come home and explain to my child that, though momma works very hard for our money we still can't afford to go somewhere or participate in certain activities.

It's not the life I dreamed of as a child.

[hfojvt]

28. metaphorically, I am biting my tongue

:freak:

[xmas74]

33. why?

I work very hard for very little pay. My child's classmates talk of all the things they get to do and the places they visit. I can't afford to take her to those places, to dine out, etc.

I never dreamed that I wouldn't be able to give my child the things I want to give her. When she was very young I still made decent money-not wealthy, but enough to pay the bills and give her a few extras here and there. Times have changed and I can barely cover bills.

[bedazzled]

50. you, too?

i tell my son to be glad we have a roof over our heads, food,
electric and water. even a car (while it lasts.)

i comfort myself thinking that these kids will be grateful
for very little. that's the key to happiness, isn't it?

[xmas74]

51. I never wanted her to know only the very basics.

I've always hoped for just a bit more for her. Unfortunately, I'm doing it alone and the economy hit us very hard. I'm making a third of what I made two and a half years ago.

Oh, and right now we don't even have the car. I had to sell that to make the bills. She still has internet for her homework, since many of her assignments need the internet now.

[hfojvt]

53. oh not because of that

just something in my mind, causing me to freak out a little.

[xmas74]

56. Ok.

It's just been a rough few years for my household. The recession has knocked us down over and over again.

[Lyric]

2. Crap. I voted Working Class before I saw Poor Working Class.

I'm actually the latter.

[Davis_X_Machina]

4. That division...

....is played like a harmonica by the people who own this country. It's one of the reasons why they can do what they do. A bucket full of crabs, and not an elephant, should be the totem of the GOP.

[socialist_n_TN]

42. That was me. I voted too soon........

Although with my wife's wages added in, my social status would probably make working class. Anyway, that's what I've always identified with. My family too from WAY back.

[barbtries]

6. even though at the moment i have a good job

i continue to count myself among the working poor. still no security.

[truedelphi]

41. Insecurity is now the Big Bad Dragon that is hiding in the hills outside our homes.

If we have a job, we could lose it.

If our business is doing well, one more slight downturn, and that income is lost for good. (In our case, many of our customers are people on pensions or on Social Security. If those go away, so does our business!)

Even if the job or business is secure, should we face a health emergency, there goes everything!

All because of the greed from the Political-Military Elite who run the show for the rest of the 99%

[Angry Dragon]

55. Dragons are not bad

you have been reading too much where the victors write the history

[truedelphi]

60. I stand corrected, Angry Dragon.

I will figure out some more suitable "Boogey man" for any future postings.


:toast:

[Angry Dragon]

72. Satan or Devil works for me

or a republican presidential candidate

[Abin Sur]

66. What sort of history has dragons in it?

Middle Earth's? In which case it's surely the author's prerogative who's "bad" and who wins...

[Angry Dragon]

71. Chinese, European

all different cultures

many different threads have dragons in their history

[Abin Sur]

74. You spoke of winners writing the history,

and while dragons certainly appear in the folklore of many cultures (not to mention elves, dwarves, vampires, etc.), that doesn't mean that there were winners and losers in regards to dragons, unless you count being killed in a story as "losing".

As for your assertion that dragons aren't bad, they're whatever any given author says they are. Smaug, for instance, was a Bad Dragon. It's a good thing that thrush told Bard where to shoot his Black Arrow, wasn't it?

[Odin2005]

7. I am of The Working Class, the Proletariat.

There are only 2 classes, The Capitalists and the Workers.

[TBF]

18. Me too. nt

[Tom Ripley]

49. +1,000,000

[white_wolf]

8. I'd say 99.9% of these forums are working class.

There are only two classes. Working class and capitalist class. The middle class is just a myth. Damn Odin beat me to it by like 5 seconds.

[Warpy]

9. Hard to say. I spent a lifetime shifting between working class

and underclass, depending on what my health was doing to me. I inherited being middle class 5 years ago and I'm still not used to the idea.

Whatever class I'm in, I'm quite solidly with the 99%. The 1% are my deadly enemies and always have been.

[Starry Messenger]

10. Working class.

[Jim Warren]

11. working class unheroe

My grandfather had his skull busted by hired thugs for "organizing".

My father was a natural leader however only reluctantly accepted the post as shop steward that he was nominated and voted into, he suffered for it, brought those troubles home with him and stressed his life immeasurably for it.

I will always be working class, of the people who produce, a thorn in the side of princes and kings, and will never forget that all measure of wealth is the product of one person's labor to add value.

[Lucian]

12. Poor working class.

[FSogol]

13. working class vs middle class is an attempt to split the middle class.

Has the definition of middle class really changed enough to state that the middle class does not work?

[Kennah]

15. I've heard many definitions of the middle class

Some of the points in the definition probably include:

• A stable job
  
• Own a home--actually live in a home that the bank owns
  
• 401K
  
• Able to send their kids to college
  

One probably needs to be in the upper 20% to truly be considered middle class.

[Odin2005]

19. There is objectively no such thing as the "middle class", Just Capitalists and Workers.

[LooseWilly]

54. Working Class AS Middle Class is an attempt to blow smoke up the asses of the working class...

Don't get me wrong... much of the working class likes to have smoke blown up it's ass... it doesn't make them Middle Class though.

If you don't own your own home, you're not middle class in this country (that's where the lion's share of the tax breaks are in the tax code... once you own a home and can deduct the interest on the home acquisition loan, then you can actually do things like deduct charitable contributions, professional expenses—like magazine subscriptions, medical costs... etc. ... if you don't have that home acquisition loan interest, then the rest of it won't amount to the personal exemption, which means that none of those other deductions are really worth taking).

Surely you're not going to say that there isn't a palpable difference in "class" between those who own a home (one that isn't underwater/ in foreclosure proceedings and merely awaiting paperwork that the bank is confident won't land them in a lawsuit before the sheriffs are called out to throw the family into the street)... and those who can't show the income/equity on a loan application and are forced to rent?

Don't get me wrong... I would agree that there are plenty of people who rent but nonetheless enjoy blowing smoke up their own asses by opening their cloacaii for the sweet lipped words of every politician that promises pies and skies to the "middle class"... but the truth is that nothing that any politician has ever offered, policy wise (well, with the exception of the Earned Income Credit... which is aimed at those of us who would have to be high to delude ourselves into thinking that we're Middle Class) ... has ever been enacted for the benefit of the Below-Middle Class (sometimes a politician will deign to utter the phrase "Working Class"... but usually it's something less, and more, judgemental like "Unfortunate Americans", "Struggling Americans"... "The Less Fortunate"... or some other euphemism that reflects a politician's innate cowardice at even acknowledging a "class" of voters that probably won't show up in numbers anyway {so fuck 'em})...

Here's a challenge... try listening to a politician's speech (look some up on YouTube and listen), and see how much they talk about the Middle Class vs. the Working Class... and then google "percentage of americans who own their own home" and see what happens. (I haven't tried... but I can guess that the numbers will be considerably less than 100 percent... or even 50 percent— which leaves one to wonder why the politicians never speak word fucking one on behalf of the interests of the non-home-owning Not-Middle-Class...

[Worship Money]

16. Working class

I don't know if that's "accurate", or fits into a detailed schema, but that's how I see myself.

I grew up dirt poor to a single mother. I myself am now personally poor, with a masters degree but I never could find full time work in my field after finishing school a year and a half ago. I work two part time jobs to keep myself honest and save money.

The thing is, I'm frankly very lucky. My mom and my now step dad are now quite wealthy (they're 1%ers by this point) and I'm able to live off them until I can literally afford to live on my own.

I certainly don't own property or capital. I want to be an academic and meet my financial goals through hard work, sensible spending and saving. So while I hope to be in a better financial situation in the future, I intend to maintain a working class mentality. We'll see how well that goes.

[Blue_In_AK]

17. Middle class, retired. n/t

[Lunabelle]

20. Working class hero... I'm a nurse

[Speck Tater]

21. Since when does class have anything to do with income?

I have very little income but a lot of class. Those Wall Street robber barons have a lot of income but not much class.

[MADem]

24. I have to agree with your assessment. It's quite accurate.

Money doesn't buy class, does it?

[leftstreet]

48. Class distinctions aren't based on character. It's the powerful vs the powerless n/t

[uponit7771]

59. +1, I know people who make a lot of money who are burried in debt too....

[LWolf]

22. What happened to the first poll?

My thoughtful response went along with it.

I put "working class," as it comes closest.

[kestrel91316]

23. Professional middle class - in theory. That was the plan, at least.

But you sure wouldn't know it by looking at my balance sheets.

When you hurt my clients, you hurt my business. My clients are middle class and working class. VERY few are wealthy.

[Capitalocracy]

25. Extremely poor and sometimes working more, sometimes working less

Freelance ftw, half the time I'm not even making minimum.

[frankcjames]

26. I'm somewhere in the bottom 80%

I support the Wall Street demonstrators and wish them luck against the Corporations. But I do wish they would do one thing --- please quit using the 99% figure.

If we do actually come to a class-economic war -- it will not be the 1% vs the 99%. It will be the top 20% against the bottom 80%.

"know thine enemy".

Just a thought :-)

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

[Shagbark Hickory]

27. I'm not a fan of classes, castes, etc. I don't know why we aim to perpetuate it.

[Better Believe It]

30. I'm not either. But, the reality is we have economic classes with conflicting interests.

[libodem]

29. Clever and classless and free

[JI7]

31. Poor but want to be rich, wealthy, have lots of money

so i can travel around the world.

[Abin Sur]

67. You don't have to be rich and wealthy to travel around the world.

It certainly helps, granted...but international vacations can be taken with reasonable frequency (say, once or twice a year) as long as one saves and doesn't take on debt.

[JI7]

68. i know, but i would like to go for longer periods

and to many different places which means less time to work to make money. either way iwould like to have lots of money.

[Abin Sur]

69. I see two ways to achieve your goal:

a) Work successfully in a field with high monetary rewards
b) Don't work for it and hope you win the lottery.

Which will it be? It is your choice, after all.

[JI7]

70. i know it's not realistic and i'm not waiting to get wealthy

i'm just saying i would like to have a lot of money.

but what i hope to get that is more realistic is maybe a flexible type job that pays enough for basic needs and leaves a fair amount for things i want to do. since i would like to travel a lot i wouldn't spend a lot on a house/housing. and i don't spend much overall on things that i don't really need so i would use the money on travel.

[Abin Sur]

73. Well heck, would wouldn't like to have a lot of money?

But what i hope to get that is more realistic is maybe a flexible type job that pays enough for basic needs and leaves a fair amount for things i want to do. since i would like to travel a lot i wouldn't spend a lot on a house/housing. and i don't spend much overall on things that i don't really need so i would use the money on travel.

From the context of this conversation, I'm guessing that you're fairly young. Assuming that to be the case, acquiring such a job would be your number one priority...that, and avoiding debt like the plague. Part of the reason I'm able to travel rather freely is that I'm single with no kids, and almost certain to remain so. If you choose to have children, it would affect your ability to travel *enormously*. It's a matter of priorities.

[JI7]

75. not really young, but not married or kids yet either

i did have some plans to travel but i got involved in this business thing which i have to look over. but it's not that profitable right now .

my hope is that i could make some money and hire someone else full time. and i can get another job maybe part time which might make it easier to travel.

but you are right that it doesn't take a lot of money. i know a lot of people who love to travel and that's what they mostly spend on. these people don't make a lot of money either. since they travel a lot they live in small mostly cheap places and they don't have a lot of belongings.

[Nikia]

32. I am inter (bi, multi) class

I had both poor and rich experiences growing up. Sometimes I will selectively tell only one set of stories depending on the person who I am telling it to. I went to a college seen as elitist in its own community. I make median income, working in a somewhat professional job, in a low income area. Since I have a stay at home spouse and a toddler, I feel monetarily poor even though we aren't officially poor. I feel like we are missing out on the good life when we have, on occasion, gone to the theater, alumni events, or even the mall in nearby cities. I think that I should have that life too since I graduated from a good college and work hard. On the other hand, I feel bad because nearly everyone that we know in our community is poor and barely getting by. Most of the working poor here seem kind of hopeless, that barely getting by is their lot in life.

[H2O Man]

34. "Other"

The Democratic Left.

[Lucky Luciano]

35. My Income puts me nearer to the capitalist class, but

I have only been working for a five years since grad school. Paid off $150K of loans/CC debt I incurred for grad school, so I have very little savings (less than 20K) and I am debt free. The income for 2011 is definitely top 1% but way below the magic 7 figures - probably upper middle class by Manhattan standards - at the end of the year there will be a bonus that gives me a significantly better cushion than what I have now - the start of real saving. There is a ton of upward mobility in my profession (ie - towards the capitalist class) and there is also risk that I could be out on my ass very fast or that I make much less in the future if the business does not do as well as planned (professional middle class).

Hard to answer at this stage accuratey. I guess it makes me the wannabe.

[bluestate10]

39. You are in a goo position. Pick up as many skills as possible.

Volunteer for stuff even when you're unsure you can perform the task. Set yourself up to start your own company one day. The important goal is that you need to be an informed capitalist who know that profits are important, but your employee's economic well being is just as important.

[Lucky Luciano]

46. Will do all of that of course. Actually my first day on the job will be Tuesday.

I reisgned from my prior employer August 31 (actually, just in the nick of time - a very bad scandal came out a week later) and have been on "garden leave" until now. SO very excited about the new opportunity that will be far more entrepreneurial. 25 employees instead of thousands. I am guaranteed for this year, but going forward it is all risk and hopefully the reward! I love it.

[uponit7771]

58. Good luck, save for the lean times

[BOG PERSON]

36. n/t

[lunatica]

37. Frankly I don't know anymore

I have a job and I pay a mortgage so I'm definitely not poor. I'm definitely not rich. I struggle quite a bit to make ends meet every single month. I've been through bankruptcy and almost lost the condo to foreclosure, was laid off and fortunately rehired. So if I'm middle class then it must be the hanging on by the skin of your teeth middle class. I will probably never go up the economic ladder, but I could very easily fall down the ladder.

But I'm hanging on for now and for as long as I can. That's me at 63.

[MrSlayer]

38. Middle class when I'm working.

When I'm not, it's quite a step down.

[shanti]

40. used to be middle class

but since retirement, and income pretty much cut in half, i'm now pretty solid working class if you're talking about income. i'm fine with it though.

[oldhippie]

43. Class?

I am of the school that believes class has less to do with income, and more to do with attitude and behavior.

I've seen how hard it is for us here to come to a consensus as to how to even define "class."

[Better Believe It]

44. That's true unless your talking about economics/politics in class society.

[Liberal_in_LA]

45. middle class but insecure about it. Could change for most of us with a job loss

[Wounded Bear]

47. Working poor....

Low wages, inconsistent hours, facing a 2 month furlough.

And nobody wants to hire a 58 year old "deadbeat."

Used to be middle class for a few years. I even hit the max on SS taxes a couple of times. Pretty much all gone now.

[Lasher]

52. The Underclass

We used to call it the Middle Class but that's just a memory.

[Better Believe It]

57. I'm working class and proud and so is my spouse.

[Abin Sur]

61. Middle class by any reasonable definition.

I make about 55k a year, have no wife or kids, have a couple hundred thousand in assets and no debts. I take one or two international vacations every year, live in a nice home in the mountains west of Denver, drive nice cars, and plan to retire in 7 to 10 years.

[librechik]

62. free swinging intelligentsia

self descriptive

[TNLib]

63. Other: Professional Working middle class

I'm non management IT programmer. But I work OT without OT pay and often feel over worked. So I'm defiantly working class but I make a middle class wage and I'm considered a professional. But these days I often feel more like a slave. So I selected other

[Taverner]

64. You are either the employing class, or the working class

Any other classes in the US are delusions

[Abin Sur]

65. The term "middle class" has no objective meaning, only a defined one.

And there are lots of definitions.