Only the middle class and above think that Class isn't a thing any more.

[FindingMeno]

Just that really.
If you're working class it's as plain as the nose on your face.

What defines someone as being working class as opposed to being middle class? Manual work, renting, living in a council house? Always interested to hear peoples thoughts on what distinguishes someone's class.

For me personally, I earn an okay wage (top 10%) but because I grew up in a council house and on benefits I've always regard myself as working class.

Can someone move classes in life? Or are we born into class?

How do I fail? I literally work with people who are in this demographic supporting them through bad times. This is often caused by the way they manage their finance working pay check to paycheck and spending unwisely not thinking about the future. I am absolutely not judging and give everyone equal support but I personally see the difference between what people see as middle class and as working class as how the money is spent and saved. You can be middle class in a 23k pa job and working class on 80k pa it's not about how much you earn, where you live or any of those things it's all about the way you manage what you have.

I'm sorry, but you haven't really read or comprehended what I've written there at all, have you? 🙄
Any thoughts on my point as illustrated in my third paragraph, which is that class indicators are more complex than they used to be?

Yeah class used to be upbringing and family status. Now people seem to base most of it on money

My partner for example is working class through and through yet until he retired he was a company director in IT earning above the six figure sum. And loves in a typically affluent town.

I suppose by those details many people would call him middle class but he certainly isn't.

I'm interested that so few people are prepared to engage with the reality of the middle classes having huge social advantage regardless of financial situation.

My DH is a masters educated, City professional, home owning, higher rate taxpayer, National Trust member. Middle class you might assume. But he is a migrant who grew up in abject poverty, didn't have running water until his 20s. I find class a fascinating British obsession, all rather nonsensical these days I think.

I think it is? The thread title is querying whether or not it's only the middle upwards who say there is no such thing as a class system? We all know (regardless of our class) that it's usually the uppers looking down at those below. This is an important point I feel, as social mobility is all about the chances of moving up. If those above you don't want you to move up to their level, that's going to be a lot harder.

That is entirely true. Social and cultural capital can’t be taken away as easily as income.

"Can someone move classes in life? "
Obviously you can move classes in life - Either up OR down.

I'm sorry but the people here thinking that just coming from a working class or benefits family means that you're working class for the entire rest of your life regardless of your income is genuinely insane to me :S

I can't fathom how people can think someone is still working class whilst they have a 6 figure or more wage?
Is class mobility a thing then, or isn't it? You can't have it both ways :S

In the U.K. is an obsession but irrelevant in most places at this age and time.

Class isn’t dependent solely on income. Wayne and Coleen Rooney are both working-class. Very wealthy working-class, but working-class.

It really, really isn’t. It would be great if it were ‘irrelevant’.

@SpicyMoth "I'm sorry but the people here thinking that just coming from a working class or benefits family means that you're working class for the entire rest of your life regardless of your income is genuinely insane to me"

Because it's not about the money. It's about the cultural capital. It's about the social confidence.

But if they didn't have the money, what would their advantages be?

I would say advantages come from good working ethic, good education, parental support (time and money, and their experience).

I think class is whatever now.

But back to OPs original question, if some people think that class is still a thing, and still a think that class is a thing to be discussed, and people like to assign themselves to a class...then yes, it's still here 🤣

Contacts, financial literacy, confidence, most likely a good education, social/cultural capital.

If you identify as working class, what could change to make things better?

Also do you hear " not for your sort" or "not for our sort"?

Stop it, you're being part of the class barrier. Go and read all around the subject if you're actually interested

Only if it doesn't affect you.

@Budgies99 "But if they didn't have the money, what would their advantages be?"

They have learned from childhood how things work. How to negotiate bureaucracy. They will be used to being taken seriously. They will not be intimidated by head teachers, social workers, the legal system. They have voices that people listen to. Because they are dealing with people like them. They know how to find things out.

I certainly got that a lot as a child from my parents. I remember aged about 11 asking my mother if I could go to university, and she said 'Don't be silly, that's only for rich people.' We only lived about a mile and a half from the local university (which has very beautiful grounds and is full of dog walkers and people taking a short cut, and retirees taking evening classes and people going to free concerts), and often drove past it on the way to my grandmother's in my childhood, but my parents said you 'weren't allowed to go in there unless you were a student'. They were mortified when I did well enough to win a scholarship to university because it was in the papers and people would 'think we were getting above ourselves'. T

If asked, I would describe myself as 'educated working class' (though that's problematic in itself, I get). I'm the child of a very poor binman and a cleaner who both left school at 13, and I found in education a way out of poverty. Despite having several degrees, and working in a professional field, and being comfortably off, and moving easily in MC circles, my early life and expectations still determine much of my outlook.

If you've been poor enough to need to know not to ask a friend to come home after school because the food isn't there, and to grow up knowing never to ask for anything 'extra' because there's no spare cash, and if you have to help your parents fill out forms when you're eight, it has a lingering impact.

And bluntly, I have a different attitude to streetsweepers, office cleaners, binmen etc compared to people who don't have parents/PILs, aunts/uncles etc who do these roles.

On the other hand, my DS leads in many ways an MC life -- two professional parents, lots of social and cultural capital washing around the household. But he also has a big extended family who do low-paid manual jobs, so that's never not going to be 'normal' for him.

PS. But looking back, in my childhood the biggest issue wasn't even so much 'not for our sort', it was that my parents simply weren't aware of what things were available, or how things worked.

There were good free museums and galleries and libraries, and a school of music that did free concerts, in our city, but it would no more have occurred to them to go to them than it would to take flight. They had no idea they didn't need to send me to the closest school, that there were other options. They had no idea that there were means-tested grants for university access, or scholarships. A 'better' school would have known this, but I wasn't at that kind of school.

Or my dad got incorrect information about whether he was allowed to extend our tiny, overcrowded council house, and just accepted it, because someone in an office told him, and that must be right. So we lived for years with an outdoor loo.

At least the internet means that you don't have to actually go somewhere and dare to ask questions now.

@Sneezeguard "I certainly got that a lot as a child from my parents. I remember aged about 11 asking my mother if I could go to university, and she said 'Don't be silly, that's only for rich people.'"

And in lots of cases it still is-reinforced by student loans. Working class people are generally more wary of debt than middle class people.

The thing is - if you have all of these, then you're not likely to be poor. Or if you are, it's hard to understand why you're not making more of them.