But, we can look at the statistical relationship between social class placement and a list of socioeconomic and demographic variables included in an aggregation of three Gallup surveys conducted in the fall of 2016. What goes into determining the class into which Americans put themselves? We can't measure all possible variables theoretically related to class self-placement, including, in particular, family heritage and background, prestige of residential area, behavior relating to clothes, cars, houses, manners, spouses and family context.

Gallup's last analysis showed that 3% of Americans identified themselves as upper class, 15% as upper-middle class, 43% as middle class, 30% as working class and 8% as lower class - with noted changes in these self-categorizations over time. These five class labels are representative of the general approach used in popular language and by researchers. Gallup has, for a number of years, asked Americans to place themselves - without any guidance - into five social classes: upper, upper-middle, middle, working and lower. This is important since the way people define a situation has real consequences on its outcome. This is subjective social class - an approach that has its difficulties but helps explain class from the perspective of the people. A second approach to social class, the one that occupies us here, deals with how people put themselves into categories.

The word 'class' appended after terms such as 'working,' 'ruling,' 'lower' and 'upper' is a shorthand way to describe these hierarchical steps, but with generally vague conceptions of what those terms mean.Ī focus on objective social class entails a direct determination of a person's social class based on socioeconomic variables - mainly income, wealth, education and occupation. Most of us have a sense of a hierarchy in society, from low to high, based on income, wealth, power, culture, behavior, heritage and prestige. The term 'social class' is commonly used in American culture today but is not well-defined or well-understood.

Define upper middle class