To think working class is not synonymous with 'poor'?

[lolliwillowes]

I know a fairly diverse range of people and have lived an several places where there has been an even mix of social and cultural backgrounds - both rural and urban.

I was just reading a diet/science thread from a few months ago and there is a lot of discussion surround poverty and obesity (which I am certain is true), except many people classified 'poverty' and 'working class'.

I think this is a really odd presumption. I have met many poor MC and well off WC and it has been unpredictable to say the least. The main difference between these groups have mostly been in their tastes, beliefs, interests, and behaviours, not cash flow.
The poorest people I have witnessed were possibly originally in one of the above social groups, but to presume poverty is synonymous with being working class is problematic.

I suppose if one has only ever existed in a very wealthy environment then the presumption may seem genuine, but I'm quite certain it is not. I would personally say that I have observed that different social groups respond differently to poverty, hence creating these stereotypes. Typical WC jobs tend to pay less, that is for certain, but it still seems odd to associate poverty with a group that regularly earns and owns property.

Is there an extra group which fits the definition better? I don't know. What I do know is that noting is simple - I grew up MC, the environment, the education, but have rented all of my life through choice (I am an artist and like to move around), so some may presume, on paper, I am something other than what I am, until they meet me and chat!

I would conclude that much of this lies with education, and I don't just mean academically. Cultural and social capital, and having learned how to react in a crisis, both in the home and later, at school. Many don't have that privilege and never learn how.

I thought they were defined as

Underclass, people who survive on benefits.

Working class, blue collar manual workers, tradesmen, labourers, cleaners. Secretarial / receptionist type roles. Often hourly paid with poor Terms & Conditions.

Middle class, Degree educated, professional roles, teachers, lawyers, doctors. Usually salaried, stable income, job security and better terms & Conditions.

Upper classes, Often money passed down, business owners, elite,

What difference does any of it make, it can be very difficult to budget on hourly paid money, that might vary weekly, illness is likely only to be SSP.
Banks are loathed to lend to hourly paid people making it difficult to get mortgages.

Am disabled. Disability class is poor.

I always thought, according to history, that the working class meant anyone who had to earn money to live. Upper classes were people ( generally nobility) who lived on 'old' money, ie inherited wealth.

Middle class people were a relatively new class ( mainly Victorians) who made money from working class people and could live off the profits of their entrepreneurship.

Middle class includes doctors, lawyers, accountants, engineers, surveyors, teachers.
People who had higher education before degrees were common place.

I have a problem with the class system. It stifles people. It stops people from being able to connect.
My mother's parents were upstanding members of the community. They had a maid. My mother and her sisters were privately educated
My father's parents were working class. My grandmother could barely read or write and had worked in the mill.
My Grandfather was a sportsman and quite famous
My father was privately educated
One set of parents looked down on the other, and had no right to do so. It fucked up my parents marriage, and my mother was crippled by how she acted and spoke, and her lack of tolerance for anyone who she considered to be beneath her socially when in fact we were so poor, the working class neighbours had a better standard of living then us.
My grandmother who was looked upon as being lower class and therefore thick was the best person I have ever known and comfortable in her own skin despite being looked down upon and knowing it.

What a fuck up

I'd agree it pigeon holes people making it hard to go up the ladder. The lack of tolerance is definitely a MC thing, along with keeping up with the Jones or trying to be the Jones

@freelions

Working class is absolutely not synonymous with 'poor' but when it comes to making links between poverty and obesity it is likely that a lack of education (both formal and by having parents who taught you to shop, cook, budget etc) is going to compound the problems causes by a lack of money

I come from a fairly MC background and am confident that even if money was really tight this would not cause me to become obese because I know how to cook nutritious meals with basic and cheap ingredients

Obviously there are people from MC backgrounds who can't cook or budget and people from WC backgrounds who are brilliant cooks but on a population level people with a more WC background are less likely to have benefited from a decent education and parents who had the time, knowledge and inclination to pass on important life skills

In addition if you come from a MC background you are far more likely to have friends or family who can help you out if you end up in financial dire straits

There's also the availability of food and access to cook it (appliances and fuel) to consider, as well as time - a low paid worker is less likely to turn down extra hours and be working awkward shifts (look up shift worker syndrome, it's a 'thing' and shift workers, especially nights, are at higher risk of all sorts, including obesity) and less likely to have a set routine, especially if they're on a zero hour contract.

My local co-op does a deal for £5 which is usually pizza, chicken dippers, chips, waffles etc, ice cream and a token bag of veg. It costs more than that to buy fresh chicken, potatoes and veg, which is going to take longer and therefore more fuel to cook, a much healthier alternative, but if you've got hungry people, are knackered after 12 hours shifts at strange times, and you've got to keep enough electric on to the end of the month and only £20 to last until then, what you buy is a bit of a no brainer really.

Underclass, people who survive on benefits.

Working class, blue collar manual workers, tradesmen, labourers, cleaners. Secretarial / receptionist type roles. Often hourly paid with poor Terms & Conditions.

These two classes have blurred imo because of the necessity of tax credits (and now UC) to be bridging the gap between wages and cost of living.

To go back to your OP, obesity shows an almost perfect inverse correlation with income. So the poorer you are the more likely you are to be obese.

I agree that social class is defined by much more than income (traditionally by your profession), I think you are also right that it takes a couple of generations to really change class. The Duchess of Cambridge's mother was born lower middle class her children were UMC but her grandchildren are aristocrats. However this amount of social mobility is rare and sadly becoming less common.

From the Marmot Review

^There's also the availability of food and access to cook it (appliances and fuel) to consider, as well as time - a low paid worker is less likely to turn down extra hours and be working awkward shifts (look up shift worker syndrome, it's a 'thing' and shift workers, especially nights, are at higher risk of all sorts, including obesity) and less likely to have a set routine, especially if they're on a zero hour contract.

My local co-op does a deal for £5 which is usually pizza, chicken dippers, chips, waffles etc, ice cream and a token bag of veg. It costs more than that to buy fresh chicken, potatoes and veg, which is going to take longer and therefore more fuel to cook, a much healthier alternative, but if you've got hungry people, are knackered after 12 hours shifts at strange times, and you've got to keep enough electric on to the end of the month and only £20 to last until then, what you buy is a bit of a no brainer really^

But many poor people have more time because they're poor because they can't get enough work.

And conversely, many well off people work long irregular hours, with days/nights/weekends etc eg doctors, pilots, a lot of engineers and maintenance staff in utilities, chemical plants etc. Shift worker syndrome is a known health risk, but many shift workers are well paid its not all NMW zero hours.

Plus this 'the poor are overweight because they can only afford cheap processed food' is almost uniquely seen in people of white British heritage, and the US, those where English is the first language perhaps.

Pretty much everywhere else, people cook a great range of simple cheap dishes, that often take little in terms of time, fuel or even fresh ingredients to cook, eg many Italian pasta dishes and soups can be made with dried pasta, canned tomatoes, canned fish, preserved olives/capers and a bit of oil. Or dhals with lentils and cheap dried spices, whatever cheap in season veg is available served with rice. Money or time is rarely the primary barrier to eating well and staying a healthy weight on a budget.

Eh, if you’re spending much time trying to figure out if you’re working class or middle class- you’re probably middle class.

I’ve always considered myself working class when the topic has been bought up, but found out through reading this thread that I’m actually “underclass”. That’s just fab.

The UK’s obsession with class is fucking weird.

There's also upper middle class, aspiring middle class, lower middle class. What there is not is aspirating upper class. One is born upper class. Even the PP with an upper class life, will not be seen by UC people as UC. Her children may, if her capital continues to grow and if they inhabit a relentlessly UC world.

Class exists in the UK. We all "know" it when we meet someone from "our" or another class. It doesn't mean we cannot befriends with or love someone outside our class, but that there will be big and small differences in attitudes and beliefs. EG For WC, buying used goods is a sign of poverty so often avoided. For MC it's a sign that their other attributes so evidently cancel any sense that used goods mean WC, that they do buy them. EG upper middle class would go to say an opera, and know the opera, and be happy it was in Italian say: while lower Mc hi but would feel uncomfortable/self conscious: WC people would not go.

@Lockdownbear Those jobs all have huge variations. I’m a qualified surveyor but my last admin job as a PA paid £60,000 per annum. My father is a millionaire and also a tradesman.

They are outdated now and don’t really have relevance in everyday life. The only difference maybe is upper class but even then it isn’t really as exclusive as it once was. My husbands family would be described as upper class. Long established family history, lots of family money but he has chosen a working class job out of duty. He could have not worked like the rest of his family if he wanted but has the complete security of his family as a backup. These established class systems were once immovable but aren’t now.

A hundred years ago I would have probably worked in service for my husbands family, they live in absolute poverty in Liverpool and it would have been a scandal. Now nobody cares who my husband married.

@Seesawmummadaw

I find it all really fascinating. I love the different opinions on class.

Ha! Yes, it's all just opinion...

@speakupattheback

There's also upper middle class, aspiring middle class, lower middle class. What there is not is aspirating upper class. One is born upper class. Even the PP with an upper class life, will not be seen by UC people as UC. Her children may, if her capital continues to grow and if they inhabit a relentlessly UC world.

Class exists in the UK. We all "know" it when we meet someone from "our" or another class. It doesn't mean we cannot befriends with or love someone outside our class, but that there will be big and small differences in attitudes and beliefs. EG For WC, buying used goods is a sign of poverty so often avoided. For MC it's a sign that their other attributes so evidently cancel any sense that used goods mean WC, that they do buy them. EG upper middle class would go to say an opera, and know the opera, and be happy it was in Italian say: while lower Mc hi but would feel uncomfortable/self conscious: WC people would not go.

All of this may be true but the point is - is WC synonymous with poor? Can they be used interchangeably? From the perspective of social analysis and mobility schemes : If class is synonymous with poverty there’s no need to mention class at all. All diversity etc initiatives for the poor. If it’s not - how do you know who is WC? You cannot apply any subjective criteria. And if you use things like ‘ no university degree’ why is a millionaire plumber’s son deserving of any help or special places at all given that his life wasn’t deprived?

Also to add OP I’m quite interested in all this as I’m heavily involved with diversity initiatives where I work. And there’s a lot of talk about ‘working class’ ones. Which make no sense.

@elbea there are definitely overlaps in income, not all WC are poor equally not all middle class are rolling in it.

But once you go into management your definitely climbing into MC territory. Your DDad may well have started out as a tradesman, but when did he last physically pick up his tools rather than get someone else to do the physical work.

I have noticed a change that when they talk about tax and stuff they tend to lump working and middle classes together. Because money wise there is often little difference.

But as I say the biggest difference is in T&C, middle class salaried jobs are more likely to have sickness benefits, enhanced maternity & paternity pay, rather than working classes hourly paid who tend to end up relying on the basic state payments.

Another one is pensions all employers now need to provide pension plans but in the past working classes didn't have such things unless they were in nationalised industries with a good union backing them.

I think it’s a bit of a fallacy that middle class people are degree educated, I would say most people I know are middle class and most didn’t go to university but did well through work or property.

On paper you would say I had a working class upbringing, single mother, council estate etc but honestly it was actually quite a nice estate and I was encouraged to learn and explore my creativity at home. Both mum and I ended up in fairly middle class occupations.

It helps where you come from. Social mobility was made very easy for previous generations but I think we will start to see it become impossible again for many poorer people.

@SinisterBumFacedCat if it's not being degree educated where would you say the line is between working and middle classes?

@girlmom21

I don't classes are even a thing anymore really, are they?

I was going to say the same. I studied sociology in the late 90s and early 00s and 'class' definitions had pretty much been abandoned then. We no longer have a set of jobs which are working class and middle class. Everything is much more fluid. Weird housing booms, rise in divorce rates or people not marrying at all, increase in kids from the ' working classes' going to university etc and meeting, mixing and partnering with people from across the spectrum. All of these mean you really can't define class.

Also the rise of random stuff like people making money from social media etc means that class is a really bizarre concept now.

No. Of course not. There are lots of WC jobs that command good wages. Most of which don't involved being tethered to the most expensive housing in the country.

Class is a thing, it does matter, and you do notice if you fall into my definition of working class.
The divide is very obvious when you're a minimum wage tenant, with little opportunity for upward progression because of lack of further/ higher education certificates.

YABU I'm afraid. Working class does indeed mean you are poor. If you are working and earn a comfortable amount, you are lower-middle class.

Working class means either on benefits or in low paid jobs, minimum wage and zero hours, that type of thing. You work to survive and just about get by.

There's the social aspect too of course, it's not just money. Certain working class people could never rise above lower-middle class, no matter what they earned. Others might have the right temperament to become middle class proper.

There's overlap and it's not a hard-and-fast rule.

All of these mean you really can't define class.
So the differences between Katie Price and Kate Middleton are....

Hair colour
Eye colour
Age
Qualifications

Right?

Sorry to be so stark. Social class is not a judgement on people's character but it definitely exists and is particularly suffocating in the UK.

@MythicalBiologicalFennel

All of these mean you really can't define class. So the differences between Katie Price and Kate Middleton are....

Hair colour
Eye colour
Age
Qualifications

Right?

Sorry to be so stark. Social class is not a judgement on people's character but it definitely exists and is particularly suffocating in the UK.

I'm not saying there are no differences between people. But more that there are NO clear boundaries. I would definitely NOT describe Katie Price as working class. Nor Kate Middleton as middle class.