Define Middle Class

That was what I typed into Google after reading Timothy McNulty's column in Friday's Tribune. As a dyed-in-the-wool classist, his thesis should inspire me to write a letter explaining that the term "Middle Class" isn't inclusive at all. Except that I tend to agree.

The term itself is ambiguous both in popular opinion and language usage. Over the years I've had people tell me that they are middle class; working people, in particular like this self-designation, while folks that could be legitimately characterized as middle class tend to self-identify by more individualistic standards. It's that self-designation that lets America be a "Middle Class Nation".
McNulty flirts with some economic definitions of middle class before settling on the U.S. Bureau of the Census average regional incomes for 2006: "Class, either by income or social status, is real but undefined in our society, yet those conditions underlie so much of the economic, social and political conversation in the newspaper.... [A]verage family income in Chicago was $70,778; for all of Cook County it was $82,456; for DuPage County it was $109,975."


As the economics of 21st Century America have shifted away from a manufacturing/ production model to a service/ consumption model, the idea of who we are has shifted as well. And therein lies the conundrum of how to define middle class. Within the class strata exists varying degrees of "middle classness". Some hold their position by merit of education, others by the work they do, or choose to do. Middle class shouldn't be measured by income, then, but by opportunity. Which becomes the problem inherent in trying to define a middle class, since it seems predicated on a set of loose, vaguely American values.

McNulty is only partly right. Widespread material prosperity cannot rightly be the sole gauge of class in the US. Economic access and opportunity are much more significant indicators of class than aggregate income data. DuPage County could be considered more middle class than Cook County only because there is more opportunity there. The disparity in average incomes between the two only demonstrates that people living in DuPage, collectively, have more access to economic and social opportunity that people living in Cook County.


Image via mrfontwacko