To have no clue how to refer to "average people" in this country

[missingmiddle]

I'm new to the UK and I am really struggling with understanding what people mean by "middle class" here.

To me it means - an average family, house in the suburbs, commuting to a boring suburban job, maybe accountants or teachers with kids in state schools or maybe a smart kid on a scholarship. Not struggling too hard to pay the bills and not on benefits (aside from perhaps the wide-ranging ones like child tax credits) but they're expecting to take all 30 years to pay off the mortgage. Enjoy going camping, cinema, dinners with friends etc

In the UK it seems to mean - City professionals/lawyers/bankers who shop at Waitrose and go to the opera and take multiple foreign holidays a year. Children at private/public school, skiing and piano lessons... To me this is upper middle class.

I suppose here the first family is called "working class" but then so are families who are really struggling with money? Do British people just not observe the difference?

Also our upper class is often someone with an inheritable title. So few and far between.
Maybe you could say upper middle classes send their DCs to feepaing schools.

But they have assets, cars, holiday homes/income from cutting down holidays, nice furniture, saleable electrical goods.

I'm talking about bread and butter on the table, holes in shoes, no hot water and nothing to sell to pay for any of it. This is how millions of people live

@Mount2Climb I'd agree with that.

Many middle and even some higher incomes will be tightly budgeted.
Those higher incomes who have chosen private schools, paying big nursery fees or with big mortgages to get into 'good' state schools where they have already sacrificed multiple holidays to pay the fees may have little disposable income left. Nobody wants to disrupt their kids to make savings.

Dinoteeth The same way as it affects lower incomes

Oh come off it

What sort of money do you think middle income is?

I wouldn't worry OP most people from the UK don't understand either. (As shown by this thread.)

From what I can work out after years a reading MN, people:

• are still trying to cram everyone in to the last century definition of each class (when social mobility was rare) and declare it's nothing to do with income or lifestyle.

• think it's to do with income and life style and middle class means people who are are "comfortably" off have a big house and pay for private school

• break it into middle class into upper-middle, middle-middle and lower-middle; all of which are defined by something or other (possibly income or how they speak and emphasis vowels or something)

• think middle class is a bad thing and declare themselves working class despite owning a big house and having a big income (the big income never makes them "rich" though because being rich is also a bad thing and a label for people in the income bracket above them.)

• base class on the type of dog that is owned and the supermarket preferred

In a nutshell, class is very important in Britain despite the claims it isn't and nobody really knowing the defining characteristics 😄

What is middle income?

An IFS spokesperson confirmed that the example they use for a middle income earner is someone on median earnings – roughly £25,000 at the moment

Middle income is not rolling in it. Even say two people on £25k so £50k between them deducting tax and NI, mortgage, council tax, other bills they will be feeling it.

Sugar in your tea! There's a signifier if ever I saw one.

I agree with the suggestion that you refer to income levels rather than class. In your example I’d probably say “families on low to middle incomes” or something.

in our family we tend to refer to “Joe Bloggs” though, if we mean ‘ordinary families “. As in “Joe Bloggs is probably struggling at the moment” I have no idea where this came from🤷‍♀️

Why?

I'm not just talking about income. I'm talking about assets.

When times are hard, you look around and think what can I sell. Yes?

Bankers aren't upper class because they work.

People will cut expenses before they sell stuff. So holiday will go. Start shopping in cheaper shops cut expenses. Before they turn to selling the xbox.

Class in the UK does not directly correlate to wealth.

A very wealthy premiership footballer is not considered upper class. A minor member of the aristocracy in a decaying country pile they can't afford to heat is not considered working class.

The class system is much more nuanced than you suggest.

Some indicators of upper middle class are:
Live in London with second home in the countryside (Cotswolds, West Sussex, Dorset, Norfolk typically) or very large house with lots of land in the countryside (across a wider area).
Children at public (private) school.
Certain dogs such as springer spaniels and labradors.
Beaten up old Land Rover
No mortgages
Ski holidays every year and maybe summer holiday to Cornwall.
Jobs in private equity, military, church, art.

Middle class (but no lower middle)
Professional and ambitious
Newish car
Two foreign holidays a year
Kids at state school or public (private) with scholarship
Ambitious and aspiration to better themselves so work lots of unpaid overtime to get promoted
Large mortgage
Sky TV

This is somewhat tongue in cheek but hopefully give you an idea!

It's an odd British thing OP, good luck with ever understanding it. However, as you're not a Brit consider yourself free from such distinctions. Take our PM. He's not aristocracy although many of his ancestors were. He, and his wife are recognisably middle class. As was his predecessor Theresa May. However the middle class Johnsons would be horrified to find themselves categorised alongside the middle class Mays. The Mays buy the wrong type of furniture, too middle class for the middle class Johnsons who are decidedly ' a cut above that'. The grabby Johnsons shop at 'Freebies R Us' and use their own money for as little as possible. The Mays, I guess, would find this tacky, distasteful and decidedly downmarket low behaviour. The class signifier are slight, subtle, spiteful and impossible to categorise as they are so many and varied. Some of it's about money, much of it is not.

You might find it easier to talk about "middle earners".

Class is a bit of a loaded term in the UK as it's not 100% about how much money you have. You can be a well off banker but if you are a barrow boy you are probably not considered upper middle class despite your wealth.

You can be relatively poor but landed/aristocracy and considered upper class.

A teacher and a junior doctor will be considered firmly middle class although pay squeezes can mean that in the south east, people on those salaries are not flush with cash.

Other ways to refer colloquially to middle income types:

• joe bloggs
• the man on the clapham omnibus
• guardian readers (although this has a slightly more complex meaning associated slightly with champagne socialists).
• middle england

I would say Boris is upper middle class.

It's just not possible to define it now.
It's nothing to do with money - someone with a PhD working on the till at Waterstones might be middle class.
It's nothing to do with education - a company director or manager who left school without a GCSE might be middle class.
Instead, I think these days, particularly thanks to our Tory government, you're either a pleb (like me) or part of the elite.

I'd say Boris is Upper class, he went to Eton one of the most expensive schools in the country.

Class especially between Working and middle has very little to do with income. Everything to do with job status. If you can sign passport applications you have a middle class job that you'd probably loss if you made a false declaration regardless of income.

The press and politicians rarely refer to classes because its meaningless. They refer to income levels as it makes more sense.

Yes luckydip, as I say, distinctions are slight, subtle and spiteful. The classes can be laddered in many different ways and if you haven't grown up with it you'll never grasp it.

I'd say middle earners rather than middle class in your example. The median wage in the U.K. is definitely in the category that would be squeezed. "Class" can get people a bit bristly - as you can tell from the thread - and traditionally was decoupled a bit from your income and was more about being in the professions (some professions have stagnated wage wise and some have soared over last 30 years, which has also muddied the waters)

Good analysis.

Also "the cost of living crisis is really hitting the middle class people now" - it's not the middle classes mostly anyway, it's the working classes and those on benefits.
Your respondents were incorrect though to suggest middle classes = bankers, you are correct on that one.

The thing about the British class system.

We have income inequality. The same as every other capitalist country. Actually we have quite high income inequaity. And fairly low class mobility (in income terms).

But thats laid on top of feudal system that never really went away.

Some of the feudal upper class continue to be very rich (because land is still important and useful under capitalism). Some less so.

Upper class people who aren't rich can horde what privilege they still have by emphasising their cultural difference and using social signifiers to indicate who's in and who's out.

This behaviour trickles down the class hierarchy

This is why you tend to gt a lot of waffle about cultural capital and supermarket preference.

It means nothing and yet it means something because people will scaffold prejudice around seemingly harmless cultural differences and will limit opportunities to what someone upthread called PLU (people like us).

Imagine the US class system. Whack a feudal upper class on the top and then move everyone else down one notch to make room for them. That's basically it.

You’re probably better off referring to middle income not class

For your cost of living sentence replace it and then you won’t get bankers etc response