News You Can Use

white collar support group (great idea!)

consumers buy more preowned cars than new

rights issue

Sony shakeup

who is middle class?
There is poor-those who are supported by government aid or charity.
A sub-section of the proletariat, the lumpenproletariat (rag-proletariat), are the extremely poor and unemployed, such as day laborers and homeless people.

working poor-a term used to describe individuals and families who maintain regular employment but remain in relative poverty due to low levels of pay and dependent expenses.

working class-The multitude of individuals who sell their labor power for wages and do not own the means of production, and he defined them as being responsible for creating the wealth of a society. For example, the members of this class physically build bridges, craft furniture, fix cars, grow food, and nurse children, but do not themselves own the land, factories or means of production. (The self-employed worker may be a member of the petite bourgeoisie--for example a highly paid professional, athlete, etc. or a member of the proletariat--like, a contract worker whose income may be relatively high but is precarious).
Petit-bourgeois is a French term that originally referred to the members of the lower middle social classes in the 18th and early 19th centuries.
It seems this country's class system is based in Socialism and the teachings of Karl Marx. Hmmmm. So it seems we are a hybrid blend of Capitalistic and Socialistic teachings. It seems American ideals are a patchwork of ideologies reflective of those who live here, often migrating from other parts of the world. Hmmm.

lower middle class,In American society, the middle class may be divided into two or three sub-groups. When divided into two parts, the lower middle class, also sometimes simply referred to as "middle class," consists of roughly one third of households, roughly twice as large as the upper middle class. Common occupation fields are semi-professionals, such as school teachers or accountants, small business owners and skilled craftsmen. These individuals commonly have some college education or perhaps a Bachelor's degree and earn a comfortable living. Already among the largest social classes, rivaled only by the working class, the American lower middle class is diverse and growing.

middle class-Within capitalism, middle class initially referred to the bourgeoisie and petit bourgeoisie. However, with the(lowering)of much of the petit bourgeois world, and the growth of finance capitalism, middle class came to refer to the combination of labour aristocracy, professionals and white collar workers. In other words, like Kanye said in his first CD, "...you know that major don't make no money..." or something to that effect. Poor and educated/intellectual is just simple misery.

upper middle class-By most peoples standards the upper middle class are those who enjoy well above average lifestyles and most of the time don't have to worry about things like car payments and other bills commonly the stress of lower members of the middle class. According to Max Weber the upper middle class consists of well-educated professionals with graduate degrees and comfortable incomes.
The American upper middle class is defined similarly using income, education and occupation as main indicators. In the United States, the upper middle class is defined as mostly consisting of white-collar professionals who not only have above-average personal incomes and advanced educational degrees but also a high degree of autonomy in their work, leading to higher job satisfaction. The main occupational tasks of upper middle class individuals tend to center on conceptualizing, consulting, and instruction.

lower upper class, upper class, wealthy- In the United States the upper class, also referred to simply as the rich, is often considered to consist of those with great influence and wealth. While most sociologists define the upper class as the wealthiest 1%sociologist Leonard Beeghley classifies all households with a net worth of $1 million or more as "rich," while classifying the wealthiest 0.9% as the "super-rich." Since the 1970s income inequality in the United States has been increasing, with the top 1% experiencing significantly larger gains in income than the rest of society.Social scientists (such as Alan Greenspan) see it as a problem for society, with Greenspan calling it a "very disturbing trend." (Wikipedia quotes)
This is the difference between America and other nations. We can earn our way into wealth or the upper classes. In societies outside of ours, you must be born into it just like nobility.

millionaire and multi-millionaire-Millionaire is the person who has more than 15 million(says Wikipedia.) The increasing prevalence of people with more and more money has given rise to additional terms to further differentiate millionaires.
A multimillionaire has a net worth of more than 2 million units of currency, a decamillionaire has a net worth of more than 10 million units of currency, and a hectomillionaire has a net worth of more than 100 million units of currency. The term centimillionaire has become synonymous with hectomillionaire in America, despite the centi- prefix meaning 1/10not 100, in the metric system.

billionaire-A billionaire is a person who has a net worth of at least one billion units of currency, such as United States dollars (USD/US$), U.K. pounds (GBP/£) or euro (EUR/€).
The first Forbes ranking of billionaires in 1986 found 140 billionaires around the world. However, by 2008 Forbes ranking counted a total of 1,125, whose total accumulated wealth measured US$4.4 trillion. John D. Rockefeller became the first billionaire on September 29, 1916--after the onset of the modern American taxation system ratified in 1913 under the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The earliest tax was started during the 1800 on incomes greater than $800 per year. Wow, go figure.

All of this information is courtesy of Wikipedia. I found, during my independent research, that the higher the wealth class, the lower amount of information available--indicating they are the least studied, however fascinating.