What are the main identifiers of those who describe themselves as lower middle classes?

[Rosehip10]

As distinct from middle/upper middle.

What right wing politicians want more than anything is for the working class and the lower middle class not to identify as a class

And what the left want is for everyone to be obsessed by it because class strife is what keeps them going. Another inconvenient fact is that many working class kids made good turn into conservatives- you only have to look at Thatcher's cabinet to see that.

One of my friends is a doctor whose dad was a dustman and who grew up in a council house. The biggest obstacles she faced wasn't being looked down on by middle class people because she said lounge and pardon, it was the sneering, verging on open hostility she faced from her extended family (her parents were hugely supportive and proud of her). Likewise another friend who was a professor at Imperial College but who was born in an Edinburgh tenement and left school at 14 with no qualifications. The engineering company he went to work for saw his potential, sent him to university and he never went back.

In the film 45 Years, the main character is full of contempt because his old trade union rep has retired to a villa in Spain and likes playing golf with his banker grandson.

The left bleat on about how they want better social mobility, but really they don't.

"TabbyMumzwhat is correct, I can assure you the Queen does not say pardon in that context. She’s not French fgs."
No it's not. In private school, people are severlyvtold off for saying "what" instead if pardon. The Queen us actually bilingual and speaks fluent French.

Does anybody actually describe themselves as lower middle class?!

I do, because I don't fit into the category of either working or middle class, my life has been very much a mix of both lifestyles.

Bit scared to expand on that though, as I feel my examples would likely get me roasted on here .

I work in a job that asks people to self-identify their class as well as measures of income/housing tenancy and so on. Weirdly the majority of people identify themselves as working-class even when by every statistical indicator they are middle-class (or higher socio-economic status). Class is an identity thing and identifying yourself as 'working class made good' (even when you have professional jobs, above average income) is a very fashionable thing. Luckily statisticians take no notice of this self-identification otherwise identifying genuine inequalities would be almost impossible.

It's easy to travel across the different classes, depending on your job etc. Lots of people from any class can go to uni these days, so can go on to have any career they want.

I would describe myself as lower middle class, if pushed. I was raised in a working class home, I have a degree and post graduate qualifications, we have a good income but not enough to send three kids private. I live in a mortgaged 4 bed detached house on a nice estate. I couldn't tell you if couch, sofa or settee is working class or middle class and supper is what you eat if you are still hungry after dinner...

I get the feeling that eyebrows would be raised if I said I was middle class or working class, depending on who was listening. Lower middle class is how I attempt to fly under the radar

Class does matter in that childhood opportunities for the future are so strongly influenced by their background. One of the greatest indicators is maternal education. Much more strongly than the father's. There will be outliers that defy these strong social trends, but these trends are real and the reason for policies such as pupil premium in education.

Class is more muddled and indistinct than it once was. It is much more than money and about culture and aspiration too.

My dad started off in the slums that became post-war council estates. Infact his dad ended up spending the rest of his life in a council flat. My dad passed his 11+ but refused to go to the grammar school, swayed by peer pressure. He started work on the factory floor and worked his way up and studied at night school to improve his opportunities. He progressed up the ranks of management assisted greatly by his combination of intelligence and social skills to adapt to the increasingly privilaged middle classes that he directly worked with, yet maintaining loyalty to his roots, held in great respect by the factory workers who still felt he related to them. By the end of his working life he still firmly held one foot in his working class roots yet was very comfortable in a very middle-middle class social scene. It was that middle class background that I was raised in.

Being able to climb the ranks from the ground up is probably harder now with an emphisis on accademic routes and less on apprenticeships. Access to the top end of the accademic world is not just about a string of A*s, but about being in a school where the staff have the background to see the potential and prepare for less common processes such as entrance interviews.

Financially, middle class is more about comfort rather than pure income. Having a disposable income. Having a safety net so that loss of a salary is not an imminent threat. The less reliant on salary with greater buffers of savings, home ownership, assets and financial products e.g. pension, health insurance, the more middle class. Lower middle class will superficially have many trappings of a middle class lifestyle, but less security behind them such as finance packages to run a fancy modern car, or more vulerability in the mortgage (although mortgages are so strongly influenced by local prices and are a reason why it's now harder to distinguish by home type).

Class is probably a stronger social construct in England due to the history of the feudal system imposed by the Normans, and our lack of gusto at revolution

Luckily statisticians take no notice of this self-identification otherwise identifying genuine inequalities would be almost impossible

Well of course statisticians are going to take no notice, the data would clearly be nonsense, as is most data based on self identified/self reported data.

Weirdly the majority of people identify themselves as working-class even when by every statistical indicator they are middle-class

It would depend very much on what they asked. If you asked me where I live, what my parents did, where I went on holiday as a child, you would put me as working class.

But you might come to a different conclusion if you asked me about my education, my interests, my income, my job, my favourite food, where I go on holiday now, my hobbies etc.

TabbyMumz
I would look at the Sutton Trust link I posted earlier if you think true social mobility exists.

Lower middle class, by definition of what most people are describing here is just working class. If you can't afford to go without working for more than a few months (and you don't have some sort of insanely expensive lifestyle choices) then you are working class. These days education level is a lot less class based

I assume most of us are working class because we need to work for a living. I think some people comfort themselves by labelling themselves as middle class and looking down on others when really the elite have left us all far far behind!

Your favourite food, hobbies (again barring very expensive ones) and so on are fuck all to do with class especially nowadays. Yes more working class people do bingo and more middle class people go to the theatre but really the difference is economic and to do with who you know.

Class is so mixed up nowadays - I saw someone define working class as anyone who needed to work as they're not independently wealthy?!

In private school, people are severlyvtold off for saying "what" instead if pardon.

And at public school they would be laughed or sneered at. Private schools, as opposed to public, are a bastion of the LMC and MMC trying hard.

I say lounge and serviette - but also shop in Waitrose and listen to the Archers.

Whenever I read these threads, I think thank Christ I don’t live in the UK any longer.

"In private school, people are severly told off for saying "what" instead of pardon."

"And at public school they would be laughed or sneered at. Private schools, as opposed to public, are a bastion of the LMC and MMC trying hard."

Private means the same as public. I was referring to private boarding schools, which is the same as the term public boarding schools. Such as Eton, Harrow, etc..
At private and public school, if you want to call it that, you are reprimanded for saying "what" as opposed to "pardon". In my experience. I dont know why people are saying "pardon" is lower class. It's not.

Single parent
UPS Teacher (Degree plus PGCE and a masters)
Last went abroad 5 years ago, budget (but wonderful) UK short break this year
Completely skint all the time- not a penny of child maintenance ever to blame for this
Cannot afford a new oven
Council house
Remain
Lib Dem

Working class

I have friends in similar positions without the degree, in lower status jobs and have less income who consider themselves middle class and vote Tory as they see themselves above the working class masses

The Queen speaking French is irrelevant, I said she isn’t French. Toilet, serviette, pardon are all French words. What is the shortened version of ‘what did you say’.

Public schools are a subset of private schools.

"Class is so mixed up nowadays - I saw someone define working class as anyone who needed to work as they're not independently wealthy?!"
What class did they think Doctors and Lawyers are in then? I think they just dont know what the different class systems are?

"Public schools are a subset of private schools."
Eh, come again? No they arent, private and public mean exactly the same thing. Public is an older way of referring to them.

A high street solicitor won’t necessarily be the same class as a public school educated QC.

"The Queen speaking French is irrelevant, I said she isn’t French. Toilet, serviette, pardon are all French words. What is the shortened version of ‘what did you say’."
Yes and if you were to say "I'm sorry, what did you say, that would be perfectly acceptable. If you were to just say "What?, that's quite rude.
I'm not sure why you think French words are common?

we have a good income but not enough to send three kids private

In London I would say you need minimum of 150k for that