Portal:United States/Selected article/2006, week 33

A monument to the working and supporting classes along Market street in the heart of San Francisco's Financial District, home to tens-of-thousands of professional and managerial middle class workers each day. A stark reminder of class in the United States.

In the United States the term American middle class is especially vague, being used to describe either all those in-between the extremes of wealth and poverty at the center of society or a relative elite of highly educated professionals and managers. It is important to differentiate between these two ideologies and that according to most authoritative sources on the subject, the majority of Americans are working or lower middle class. While the vast majority of Americans identify themselves as middle class and live under the assumption that indeed the majority of Americans are middle class, only a minority of the population can afford to live the middle class lifestyle. Despite rising awareness of the middle class being one of relative affluence, the idea of the middle class being at the center of society including janitors, architects and lawyers, remains. The modern American middle class which bears its roots in the bourgeoisie, was largely born in the 1950s during the suburbanization of the United States. Today most experts and writers do agree that the middle class or at least those with lifestyles indicative of the American middle class constitute no more than 20% of the population and are in terms of privilege and influence closer to the top of society than the bottom or the working class majority. Thus contrary to common belief the middle class as defined by lifestyle is neither a broad majority located nor at the center of society but rather a sizable privileged minority below the top 5%. (read more...)