en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_middle_class
contemporary social scientists have put forward several, more or less congruent, theories on the American middle class. Depending on class model used, the middle class may constitute anywhere from 25% to 66% of households.
Hamilton College commonly divide the middle class into two sub-groups. Constituting roughly 15% to 20% of households is the upper or professional middle class consisting of highly educated, salaried professionals and managers.
places the range for middle class at individuals making between $25,000 and $100,000 a year. Ah yes, there's a group of people bound to run into each other while house-hunting.
Members of the middle class belong to diverse groups which overlap with each other. Overall, middle-class persons, especially upper-middle-class individuals, are characterized by conceptualizing, creating and consulting.
While the groups overlap, differences between those at the center of both groups are considerable. The lower middle class has lower educational attainment, considerably less workplace autonomy, and lower incomes than the upper middle class.
upper middle class", consists mostly of white collar professionals, most of whom are highly educated, salaried professionals whose work is largely self-directed. Many have graduate degrees, with educational attainment serving as the main distinguishing feature of this class.
These professionals typically conceptualize, create, consult, and supervise. As a result, upper middle class employees enjoy great autonomy in the work place and are more satisfied with their careers than non-professional middle class individuals.
Increasingly salaried managers and professionals have replaced individual business owners and independent professionals. The key to the success of the upper-middle-class is the growing importance of educational certification... its lifestyles and opinions are becoming increasingly normative for the whole society.
Values and mannerisms are difficult to pinpoint for a group encompassing millions of persons. Naturally, any large group of people will feature social diversity to some extent. However, some generalizations can be made using education and income as class defining criteria.
In her 1989 publication Effects of Social Class and Interactive Setting on Maternal Speech, Erica Hoff-Ginsberg found that among her surveyed subjects, "upper-middle class mothers talked more per unit of time and sustained longer interactions with children".
Upper middle class manners tend to require individuals to engage in conversational discourse with rather distant associates and to abstain from sharing excessive personal information.
mass affluent households to be conservative on economic issues while liberal on social issues, the upper middle class seems to be relatively politically polarized. In the 2006 mid-term elections both Democrats and Republicans received over 40% of the vote from those with advanced degrees and those in households with six figure incomes.
edit Lower middle class The lower middle class is the second most populous according to both Gilbert's as well as Thompson & Hickey's models, constituting roughly one third of the population, the same percentage as the working class.
these are people in technical and lower-level management positions who work for those in the upper middle class as lower managers, craftspeople, and the like. They enjoy a reasonably comfortable standard of living, although it is constantly threatened by taxes and inflation. Generally, they have a Bachelor's and sometimes Master's college degree.
The use of the term "working class" is applicable if the position of individuals, households and families in relation to the production of goods and services is the main determinant of social class. Class distinctions are seen in the distribution of individuals within society whose influence and importance differ. The nature of a person's work and the associated degrees of influence, responsibility, and complexity determine a person's social class.
Factors such as nature of work and lack of influence within their jobs leads some theorists to the conclusion that most Americans are working class. They have data that shows the majority of workers are not paid to share their ideas. These workers are closely supervised and do not enjoy independence in their jobs. For example: The median annual earnings of salaried dentists were $136,960 in May 2006, indicating a high degree of scarcity for qualified personnel. The opinions and thoughts of dentists, much like those of other professionals, are sought after by their organizations and clients.
edit Vernacular middle class The term middle class in more colloquial language use may refer to all those individuals who might at one point or another be identified as middle class, as they occupy neither extreme of the socio-economic strata. Most of those with households income between $40,000 and $95,000 identify as "middle class". The term can also be used to describe those at the actual center of the income strata, who may also be referred to as the middle-middle class. There are many different theories on the middle-middle class. The middle-middle class may be composed of those households with annual incomes of 80% to 120% of the national median household income. Persons in this income range could, in accordance to solely economic reasoning, be referred to as the American average.
Here the middle class is defined as consisting of professionals or business owners who share a culture of domesticity and sub-urbanity and a level of relative security against social crisis, in the form of socially desired skill or wealth.
Household income in the United States As social classes lack clear boundaries and overlap there are no definite income thresholds as for what is considered middle class.
Sociologists William Thompson and Joseph Hickey estimate an income range of roughly $35,000 to $75,000 for the lower middle class and $100,000 or more for the upper middle class. Many social scientists including economist Michael Zweig and sociologist Dennis Gilbert contend that middle class persons usually have above median incomes.
Unlike personal income, household income does not reflect occupational achievement as much as it measures the number of income earners. Sociologist Dennis Gilbert acknowledges that a working-class household with two income earners may out-earn a single-income upper-middle-class household, as the number of income earners has evolved into one of the most important variables in determining household income.
Furthermore, household income fails to recognize household size. For example, a single attorney, earning $95,000, may have a higher standard of living than a family of four with an income of $120,000.
relationship between the distribution of income and the class structure is... we saw dual-income working class marchers looking down on single-income upper-middle-class marchers. does not exactly match the distribution of household income.
social strata, it might still be influential, as such definition may include the "professional middle class", which is then commonly referred to as the "upper middle class".
Most ideas that find their way into the cultural mainstream... are crafted by a relative elite: people who are well educated, reasonably well-paid, and who overlap, socially and through family ties, with at least the middling levels of the business community--in short, the professional middle class.
edit Typical occupations Office buildings such as this are often the place of work for the vast majority of middle-class Americans, whether they are upper-middle-class professional or lower-middle-class secretaries.
There is great diversity among the occupations found among those living the middle-class lifestyle, and the appropriateness of some occupations being placed here will depend on each individual's personal outlook.
Many of those in the statistical middle class might work in what are called the professional support fields. These fields include occupations such as dental hygienists, and other professional and sales support.
In 2005, the average new home had a square footage of 2,434 squa...
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