What constitutes under class?

[Invalidusername88]

Just reading about working class on another thread. It got me thinking about the term under class? What does this mean?

Also what class would you identify yourself as if you had to?

I don't think it's necessarily just financial or related to unemployment. It's very much about behaviour too. So underclass means to me, people who are unable to hold a civil conversation, who don't use day to day niceties, who are inconsiderate, swear a lot, behave aggressively and make others feel threatened or uncomfortable.

Like the dad from Shameless, basically.

Sorry, @MrsHughesPinny, I just meant to answer the OP, not tag you!

I think you do need the term underclass because without it people like this are classified as working class which is very offensive to actual working class people.

All of which have to be demonstrated so that children can learn how to behave and interact with others in an acceptable and considerate manner. One of the many reasons that Sure Start was such a help to many. George Osborne couldn't wait to kick it out to save a few quid in the name of austerity. Well done George. Another stunning achievement.

100%. How do you learn to be considerate when there is domestic violence at home? How do you learn day-to-day niceties when you are cold and there isn't enough to eat? How do you learn how to hold a civil conversation when you grow up in an environment of emotional neglect? Who teaches you these things? Your teacher, who has a class of 30 children just like you who are acting out because their basic needs aren't being met?

Exactly. That's why we need a term like "underclass" though. It describes people who have no hope and no opportunity. It's very telling that it's a word that didn't exist until recently.

It is utterly shameful that there are people in this situation.

• criminality
• a life on benefits combined with a total lack of morals

I am working class myself and on the council estate whereby I grew up there were very distinct markers between the under class and the working class. My dad worked in a factory and my mother was a HCA before doing her nurse training. We were brought up, not dragged up, but we were very much working class.

We knew right from wrong, had nice clean houses (albeit council) and better manners. Many people from my old estate are now in prison, one because he ran over a police office and killed him, that sort of thing. The people who you really wouldn’t want as neighbours.

Describing the above is just a fact. I’ve got no time for wokeness really.

There has ALWAYS been the underclass. There ALWAYS WILL be an underclass. Some escape it of course, as a pp has described. Some are trapped in it, of course, and We should help them get out if it if We can.

But there will always be some who have no ambition or aspirations, who don't want to work when they can work the system or live on criminality.

Every word of that is rubbish. Good Lord, can't believe I read that in 2023.

There certainly has not always been an underclass. There was in Victorian times, when machines and greedy landlords pushed jobless and homeless people into cities to live in slums. There is now. At most times throughout recorded history, there have been opportunities for people to develop skills and careers.

Your comment about "aspirations" and "aspirations" is pure ignorance, and I've got four degrees, all from some of the world's most competitive institutions. When I was a child, my father turned his back on a good career and moved us to a village with high unemployment. I did well because I knew how to navigate the education system from my parents. The majority of kids in my class had absolutely no hope.

They wouldn't have known how to get into a profession any more than you'd know if you were in their position. Their parents couldn't help. The school was so poor and everyone in their lives was so uninterested that most couldn't do basic maths, most could hardly read. They didn't have a hope of getting into any kind of training. Apprenticeships that used to pay enough to survive on were cut to the point that only kids whose parents still supported them could possibly afford to do an apprenticeship. No one could afford to get to a city with jobs or pay rent while hunting for a job. You do not have a clue.

Of course there hasn’t always been a underclass. Before the Welfare state and benefits, you either worked or starved - or went into the workhouse. Or just died on the street. Ditto if you couldn’t work because of illness/disability and had no family or friends to help you.

Try reading some Dickens - in particular the bit in Bleak House about ‘Tom All Alone’s’. Dickens knew the darker side of Victorian London all too well.

What a shit term. I'd never use this wording it's derogatory as others have said.

Well, what would you say instead? Being mealy-mouthed and referring to people as "disadvantaged" means erasing the suffering that members of the underclass are dealing with. There are many working-class people who are disadvantaged but aren't dealing with anything like the pain that members of the underclass are.

The word is offensive because some well-meaning but clueless privileged people think they're doing the worst-off a favour by trying to erase the poverty.

Exactly. The underclass are certainly no one to be felt sorry for, they know exactly what they're doing and how to play the system.

So I'm underclass because I am disabled. What a nasty ableist post.

@PumpkiPie

Agree. I live on a council estate. There are lots of decent working class people who live here. We also do unfortunately have the underclass who leave their sofas out the front for the council to sort, usually deal drugs, take them or both. They have no intention of working and never have done. They live their lives in an anti social manner, have zero manners and know EXACTLY how to claim certain benefits like PIP, which is incredible considering it’s not an easy benefit to actually get.

I am a teacher who classes myself as WC. I did an OU degree and got myself qualified as I had worked for years as a teaching assistant. My husband also works full time and always has done however we did hit hard times initially to even get this house. We are WORLDS apart from the underclass. That’s not an attempt to feel superior like many have stated on this thread. It’s just an absolute fact.

Perfectly able-bodied people who have never worked, have no intention of working but prefer to make money by criminal means and claiming benefits. They usually display highly anti-social behaviour and makes the lives of decent people around them a total misery.

Yes underclass and working class are very different.

Working class usually means blue collar work. Having certain hobbies and interests. Could be living in social housing or private.

Underclass is long term unemployed and uneducated, anti social behaviour and criminality.

I think underprivileged is an appropriate term because it reminds us that privilege exists, and there really is no such thing as pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps.

@Antst the terms under, middle, upper etc are all awful. I come from a country without a real 'class system' so perhaps have a different perspective from many but landing a label on people generally is unnecessary. The term 'under' implies people are 'below' other people in life but are they? Is your life worth more than mine or mine more than anyone else's? Why the need for labels?

Being a victim of domestic violence doesn’t mean you aren’t taught to be considerate, being a child in poverty doesn’t prevent you from learning day to day niceties, being neglected doesn’t prevent you from holding civil conversations. Are you not aware that children in wealthy families are also victims of domestic violence and emotional neglect, or do you see those victims as being a better type of victim?

Agree...I think in terms of underclass it's a culmination of factors which defines a person as such rather than one single thing.

@Comedycook

It is cultural too. My own mum was in childrens homes as a kid, serious poverty. Dad died early of alcoholism etc etc. But, they had manners still. Knew right from wrong and didn’t terrorise people. They were good people, just incredibly poor. It’s not all about severe poverty.