Hmm. I'm from the US and I don't know why you Brits find our class structure so hard to comprehend. It's very much like the classes in in the UK except we don't have royalty (our royals are celebrities and uber-rich).
I was from a working class family. My brother is a car mechanic and while he may make more than some middle middle-class folks, they look down on him because he works with his hands and isn't well read, even though he isn't stupid by any stretch.
I moved into the lower middle class because of education and occupation. My ex's family was in the upper middle class, but downplayed their money. My ex was lazy, and while we could interact with those above us on the scale because of our education and the way he was raised, our income couldn't compete, so we didn't live in the right neighborhood and drive the right cars to fit in. My ex's mother's family had been in the upper class. She grew up with maids and a cook. Her father owned a dry-goods store, so I guess that would have made him merchant class, but he invested well and weathered the Great Depression coming out on top at the other side. But his daughters each married beneath their station as they say, and the family fortunes have dwindled greatly. Two generations down from all his money and the cousins are all decidedly working class in their salaries regardless of what jobs they have.
Of course some of this is because of the economy, and the whittling away of the middle class by the politicians on the right. The third generation down from this man who was able to employ hundreds, had two stores and 3 factories, and had a mansion and a summer home in the posh city by the sea that he employed servants in year round, are all scratching to get by working as store clerks even though they are college educated.
I heard of a study that researched family trees going back to the middle ages and they found that over the centuries, people's lot in life rarely changed from that of their ancestors. In recent history in the US, I don't see it. One poor decision, one 'bad' marriage, and people can drop into poverty regardless of the class they were born into.
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I was from a working class family. My brother is a car mechanic and while he may make more than some middle middle-class folks, they look down on him because he works with his hands and isn't well read, even though he isn't stupid by any stretch.
I moved into the lower middle class because of education and occupation. My ex's family was in the upper middle class, but downplayed their money. My ex was lazy, and while we could interact with those above us on the scale because of our education and the way he was raised, our income couldn't compete, so we didn't live in the right neighborhood and drive the right cars to fit in. My ex's mother's family had been in the upper class. She grew up with maids and a cook. Her father owned a dry-goods store, so I guess that would have made him merchant class, but he invested well and weathered the Great Depression coming out on top at the other side. But his daughters each married beneath their station as they say, and the family fortunes have dwindled greatly. Two generations down from all his money and the cousins are all decidedly working class in their salaries regardless of what jobs they have.
Of course some of this is because of the economy, and the whittling away of the middle class by the politicians on the right. The third generation down from this man who was able to employ hundreds, had two stores and 3 factories, and had a mansion and a summer home in the posh city by the sea that he employed servants in year round, are all scratching to get by working as store clerks even though they are college educated.
I heard of a study that researched family trees going back to the middle ages and they found that over the centuries, people's lot in life rarely changed from that of their ancestors. In recent history in the US, I don't see it. One poor decision, one 'bad' marriage, and people can drop into poverty regardless of the class they were born into.