Upper Class or Working Class

[Tulipsroses]

Please only reply if you comfortable put your self in either Working Class or Upper Class with a short reason why.

We did the test when it came out and DH and I came out as one thing. Did it a few years back and we were something else. And did it last year were something else entirely differently. Ultimately it came down to income. We thought it was total bollocks tbh.

@Hoosemover according to that link I'm a new affluent worker. I am not. Seems to be based largely on income and assume young people who might like hip-hop for example, can't be upper class or Elite as they call it. I'd hazard a guess that Peggy from MAFS would probably get Elite using that model.

Income is part of the equation.

Working class = Filthy poor???

I'd be interested to know what I am.

Parents lived in a council house. Dad a manual worker. Mum did bar work/shop/cleaning in the evenings. Poor. Scrabling for 50p for the meter.

Parents divorced Step dad a trademan aalso.bought/built a house. Sent me to private school. I had piano lessons, riding lessons, have horses, go (or used to) to theatre, ballet, polo. Friends from school are in medicine, law etc.

I own (mortgage) my home but am poor. Single parent, 2 kids, work pt but earn reasonably well for the area.

Still WC I'd say. If I'd made different relationship choices my life would be very different.

ETA - The quiz puts me at established middle class

Me too, we’re a ‘small emerging group’ apparently 😂

Well do you want to know about class or wealth? They are 2 different things

Average net worth per household in UK (everything you own, minus everything you owe) is £302,500

The 1% richest households have over £3.6m
The 15% poorest households have £15,400 or less

You can see what % you fall into here

www.avtrinity.com/news/what-is-the-average-household-net-worth-in-great-britain

Being rich is likely to be highly subjective

how would you define it out of curiosity?

Hate things that are on household income because automatically puts single parents at a disadvantage.
If I was with someone who earned as much as I do, I would be in the elite, but on my own I'm just technical middle class 🙄

Oooo fascinating!

I find what counts as ‘a lot of money’ to be very subjective and incredibly varied across the classes. Is your net worth closer to £100k or £10 million?

It’s basically meaningless.

This isn't the definition of working class! Middle class people also work for a living.

apparently im part of the elite, despite owning one property, a 1930's semi not in london, a 12 year old Ford, and no boat.

pointless trying to define class really. I would consider myself some type of working class, because I rely on working for a living. Maybe I'm "Elite Working Class". 😁

Upper class people don’t go onto social media sites admitting that they are upper class so your post is pointless.

That BBC survey classifies most of my social circle as Elite when they are in fact, solid middle class, at best upper middle.

Income does not indicate class though OP, so I’m a bit confused by your question? Do you want the opinions of very rich and very poor people? Or upper class and working class? They are two different things.

According to a government study, 49% of Brits consider themselves working class, 36% middle, and 1% upper.

Money is absolutely a component of class, of course it is. It is not the only factor, but equally it is not completely irrelevant.

I think people (especially on MN) try to deny that there is such a thing as downward mobility, but it definitely exists. If someone who grew up middle class but later in life finds themselves on benefits, relying on food banks, suffering from fuel poverty etc. then they are no longer middle class.

They may wish to continue thinking of themselves as such (not sure why - it won’t make the poverty and starvation any easier), but to anyone with an iota of sense, those people are clearly no longer part of the middle class.

Survey says..Technical middle class...whatever that is lol. I'd personally just go with working class though.

I think income plays a far bigger role than anyone likes to admit. Cultural capital is accessible through wealth and tends to do a lot of mc signposting but you can only cling on to your middle class status so long when you are down to beans by calling it supper.

Pretty much the same here except my dad was a soldier because he didn’t want to go down the pit and there weren’t many alternatives.

Both grandads were miners and extended family either worked in the pit or factories.

DH works in a factory and neither of us went to university so I guess we’re solidly working class!

I doubt the unhoused “underclass” and filthy poor have time or desire to be on MN.
people may experience situational poverty at multiple points in their lives. But some have more resources and support than others.

I'm an upper class old gal. I live in a draughty old stately home that has been in my family since 1792 and am descended from nobility. I can trace my family tree back to the Norman invasion. I'm filthy rich, keep horses and ride to hounds and I let my dogs drink from the lavatory bowls and sleep on the four poster beds. I like the working classes, but despise the middle classes and their insistence on using pastry forks, they also insist on putting those damn blue tablets in their lavatories and it's bad for my dogs.

So apparently if you have one small, mortgaged house, one 12-year-old car (bought 3rd-hand), a household income of less than £100k, and know anyone who works in the arts but don't listen to hip-hop, you're part of the Elite...

Right-o.

@RedToothBrush Of course it is bollocks because it social sciences is based on human beings rational.

they are irrational as this site’s posters have testified on many occasions.

Income doesn’t dictate class, it is often a by product though.

working class is unskilled/semi skilled labour on a wage. No college or uni education,
middle class is skilled on a salary, further education.
Upper class is effectively aristocracy.

with these in broad buckets often comes financial differences ie a labourer often earns less than a doctor type of thing.

but there are overlaps. A semi skilled tradespersons can far,out earn a civil servant for example or a junior doctor . Upper class can be skint. Middle class can be business owners, or even the beckhams of this world, who could buy and sell much of the upper class.

so financially it is concentric circles. But income comes into it purely by default. Many working class people are wealthier than middle class, or even upper, and many middle class people have less income than working class. And many have more than upper class.

thats why it is not focused on income.

I love this! You are only middle class if you have children!

I am working class because my ancestors were working class.

I don't agree with this definition. My parents are definitely working class (mechanics and shop checkout, then unemployed and claiming benefits from time to time), and all my ancestors were working class, so by your definition I am too. However, I have a high income, live in a 5 bedroom detached house, have a PhD, have taught in universities, am a published writer, my kids go to private school... if I called myself working class that would be ridiculous.