What do you consider "Lower", "Middle", and "Upper Class"? How do you differentiate between them?

Question

Long ago, when I was young, there were the three basic classes,

Upper- The owners of businesses and or bankers.

Middle - The white collar workers.. people who ran the businesses etc.

Lower- The blue collar workers.. people who worked for the businesses.

What is it now?

Answer 1

The upper, middle and lower classes are composed of various levels and roles in societies:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_stratification

The "Upper Classes" are considered to be the richest and/or most powerful levels of former and present-day civilisations:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_class

or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruling_class

or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite

or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobility

or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrician_(post-Roman_Europe)

or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristocracy

or (and/or) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clergy

or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomenklatura

or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_dictatorship

and, with globalisation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnational_capitalist_class

The "Middle Classes" involve several levels of more or less rich, influencial, and/or powerful rich groups of people, and too many wrongly believe that they are part of the "Middle Classes".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_class

or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourgeoisie

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_middle_class

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_middle_class

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1896206/Millions-wrongly-believe-they-are-middle-class.html

The "Working Classes" include the most common groups of blue-collar workers or employees, from more to less skilled or qualified professionals in various production, industrial and service functions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_class

or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proletariat

or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plebs

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_farm

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_business

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peasant

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precarity

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_poor

The Lowest Classes have also several levels

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underclass

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_poverty

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery 

further, with slavery: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contemporary_slavery

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery#Chattel_slavery

Comments

Thank you for your input.  similar to my thinking except you have added another level.

Answer 2

Upper class: Rich business owners and politicians

Middle class: The hard working people trying to put their kids through school and food on the table

Lower class: Mostly the people who don't work and look to the state governments for handouts and then work some menial labor jobs and never declare the income or taxes.

Comments

@ Rooster:

If the politicians aren't rich when they start out in politics, they sure are, almost without exception, by the time they finish. Mr. Smith hasn't been to Washington in ages.

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Thank you for your input.

Answer 3

Mostly by the percentage of their income they pay in taxes.

Lower: pay no income taxes and get government subsidies for housing and food.

Middle: pay 25-30% of income in taxes, higher in states like CA and NY.

Upper: pay less than 25% of income in taxes, because most of their income is from capital gains and sheltered by tax loopholes.

Comments

Thank you for your input. You go directly by reported income it seems.

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Yes, although I recognize that there is much unreported income for work done off the books, or from unreported investments abroad. Again, these are most likely to occur in the lower and upper strata, and least in the beleaguered middle class.

Answer 4

Korvo, when I was growing up in the 1950's, I think the three classes were much as you describe.

Now, idk...it's different...as I look online, sometimes there is a differentiation made between the middle class and the working class; the current working class being what you describe as the lower class. 

Then, the lower classes are much as Other Tink describes, except that I would describe the lower classes with sympathy for them, especially since I am part of them!

Also, I think here in the US there might now be another class, the super-rich elite; and they are maybe only 1/2 of one percent of the population, but they control the government and the politics and the economy too, along with the system of jurisprudence. Apparently, this tiny group has been able to arrange things so that they pay very little in taxes, and so that ever more of our national wealth moves into their control, and the rest of us are unaware or something, but somehow we have not been able to use the vote to correct this unwholesome situation.

So the class arrangement is changing and I don't really understand it but I am worried!

Comments

Thank you for your input. (I think that that "super-rich elite" class has always been there, in the US the Rockefeller family, the Kennedy family, etc. The difference is now they are noticed due to media.)

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Yes, it is very possibly so, Korvo!