Let's Define "Working Class"

You might have seen the following post making the rounds on facebook (posted by a Canadian):

Remember when teachers, nurses, postal workers, librarians, social workers, airline employees and care assistants crashed the stock market, wiped out banks, took billions in bonuses and paid no taxes? (Copy and paste into your status to show support for the world's working class)

The point about bailouts going to rich bankers is well-taken, but what irks me is the attempt to label teachers, nurses, and other relatively well-paid groups "working class". Language is fluid and I might be behind the times, but my understanding of the definition of "working class" does not include those professions. In my world, working class people are not government employees competing against the banks for bailout money because working class people are not politically organized. That's part of why they are stuck in the working class.

(Aside: the other thing that is irksome about the italicized statement is that it lumps nurses, librarians, postal workers, etc in with the "world's" working class, like people who make two-dollars a day stitching Nikes in Bangladesh should feel a sense of solidarity with entitled Westerners that own jewelry worth more than a house in Bangladesh and could not find the country on a map.)

If the definition of "working class" is "the group of people who work to make money" then politicians and bankers would be working-class but a retired steel-worker would not be. Unless you are trying to distinguish the masses from the landed aristocracy in pre-war England then using that definition of working class is not going to be very much help.

The vagueness of the definition makes the term useful to politicians. The NDP, for example, can talk about fighting for "working families" knowing that almost everyone will think of themselves as part of that group. They won't realize that "working families" is nearly equivalent to "Canadian families" which, incidentally, is who the Conservatives say they fight for. (I guess that leaves the Liberals fighting for non-working non-Canadians) In reality, the NDP is probably the party that would do the most for non-working families by pushing a stronger safety net for the unemployed.

Anyway, I am getting off-topic again. Below are three keys you can use to determine whether or not you are working-class. If all three statements are true about you then there is a very good chance you qualify.

1. Your household income is in the bottom third. Since working class is usually contrasted with middle class and upper class, I am using the one-third mark as the cut-off. In Canada, that works out to approximately $55,000. Remember that we are looking at household income so if you are someone who works part-time and makes only $10,000 annually, you will still fail to meet this condition if your significant other works as a teacher making $70,000.
2. You are not on salary. I wanted to say, "You are paid by the hour" but that would exclude people who are paid for production such as tree-planters and farmers. And I realize that lawyers and prostitutes are paid by the hour, but they are differentiated in the other two conditions.
3. You are paid more for your what body does than what your brain does. As a corollary, a member of the working class usually has to stand to do his or her job while the rest of us get to sit down.

If you are still on the fence, here are some other factors that would strongly suggest you are working-class or maybe even destitute:

• You know former co-workers who had to stop working because of injuries.
• You have unironically voiced a prejudice against a race or national origin in the past year, possibly while inebriated.
• You know how long you are allowed to stay on welfare before they cut you off.
• You think TFSA is an acronym for a new baseball statistic.
• Your house looks like the house next to it. Alternatively, you do not have a house.
• You last went to school in grade twelve.
• You have a job, not a "profession".
• You have ever worn handcuffs for non-sexual reasons.

The desire to be classified as working-class is similar to the desire people have to be well-off while simultaneously appearing poor. People love to complain about how tight their budgets are yet never discuss how they allowed their disposable incomes to be tied up on frivolities. Being rich is seen as tacky. People who are poor grind their way to make a living which is seen as a noble struggle. Their efforts may not produce stunning results but you have to admit they got the job done. They are "workmanlike", which is a compliment.
Essentially, the middle-class wants the sympathy and authenticity that comes with the perception of working crap jobs, but they cannot accept the reality of low pay and hard work that is the other half of the equation.

This has lead to white-collar workers romanticizing menial labour from a distance. Think about the protagonist in Office Space: At the start of the movie he is a software engineer which is a job that requires him to work for a living but he is not working-class. He is paid a good salary to essentially sit at his desk daydreaming. At the end of the movie, he gets a job as a construction worker, which is clearly working-class but it makes him happy. In real life no one is making that transition, but as a fictitious narrative it can sell a lot of DVDs.