The subjective meaning of social class identification in the United States. Public Opinion Quarterly

ERMS such as poor, working class, middle class, upper middle class, and upper class are routinely used to make analytic distinctions in both journalistic and scholarly literature. Concern with these dis-tinctions is reflected in the repeated use of items in public opinion surveys that ask Americans to identify with a social class. However, some analysts have argued that social class terms have no intrinsic Abstract This paper assesses the significance and meaning to Americans of five common social class terms: poor, working class, middle class, upper middle class, and upper class. After respondents in a national survey had been asked with which of these five classes they identified, they were asked how they would assign various occupations to the classes and what criteria they used to define membership in their own class. Most respondents were able to assign a variety of occupations to social classes with little or no hesitation, and there was high agreement about the class location of occupations. The prevailing class assignments of those occupations reflect hierarchical socioeconomic characteristics (such as income, job authority, education, and skill) rather than a qualitative blue-collar/white-collar distinction. Finally, the criteria that respondents selected as important in defining the social class with which they identify suggest that class is at least as much a social as an economic phenomenon in the United States