Money Matters

[ladysprite]

Apologies for the rant that's about to follow, but....

So I've been thinking a lot recently about social classes, and financial privilege. And I have to wonder - at what point of material well-being does one become incapable of comprehending that there are people whose upbringing did not match theirs?

Because I have a significant handful of friends - good friends, good people - who grew up fairly well-off, who are just incapable of comprehending this. They weren't wealthy, and that's all that they see, and so they feel that they grew up underprivileged. And, by extrapolation, that anyone else who claims the label 'underprivileged' grew up in a situation like theirs.

And to be honest, it frustrates me, because... well, there was a bit more challenge to growing up on food stamps, or with sometimes not enough money for both heat and food, than to growing up with only one summer home and no in-ground pool.

I grew up lower-middle class. Food stamps, reduced-price school lunches, hand-me-down clothes from my cousin who was sixteen years older than me. And yet I understand that it could have been a hell of a lot worse, and that there were people out there who DID have it a lot worse - we had enough food (mostly cheap stuff like Hamburger Helper, but it was food), we had a phone and tv.

And I think that's what confuses me the most. It seems like, at some level of privilege, people become incapable of recognizing that some people have it worse. And I don't understand how this happens, or at what point - or when the assumption becomes that everyone starts life off with more or less the same resources as you.

(And on that note, don't get me started on 'We're not rich, we WORKED for our money!' So did my family. The only difference is we started out with a lot more debt and a lot fewer resources, and earned a lot less. We weren't poor because we were lazy; we were poor because no one paid for our education or sent us out into the world with a stock portfolio and a trust fund.)

That said... ultimately what I want is to understand, and figure out how to explain. Because it's no one's fault that they grew up in different circumstances, and ultimately, as I said, they're good people. But I think that finding a way to communicate clearly this difference in experiences and circumstances would go a long way to improving the situation in this country.....

Comments

[ladysprite.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I'll be honest; I considered myself lower-middle class instead of lower-class because, all things considered, we had a decent enough lifestyle.

We had a house. We had enough food to eat (yeah; it was subsidized by food stamps and reduced-price lunches, but there was enough of it). We had cable tv. I could sometimes get new clothes (from K-Mart, but I had friends who didn't own anything that didn't come from Goodwill). One summer I went to sleepaway camp. We had two cars.

So... I figured that was middle class. Lower end, yeah, but I didn't want to claim lower-class status; I figured that would be offensive to folks who didn't have the benefits and assets that I did.

[grum]

Thank you. That is informative. The words we use for things are so unteresting snd can obfuscate both similarities and differences.
Did you differentiate destitute, poor, lower class, lower middle class, middle class, upper middle class, wealthy, and fabulously rich?
Interestingly, and falsely I now know, my parents gave me the strong impression that tradesmen and the working class could never climb above lower middle class unless they transitioned to management which was then a white collar position. Not explicitly taught, of course, but very close to it. My father still believes that steelworkers are not middle class. By virtue of being steelworkers, regardless of savings, or homeownership status. It confuses me.

[ladysprite.livejournal.com]

I don't tend to use specific terms for various levels; my internal meter is more a color-scale - there are a lot of different gradations within each level, but it still mostly boils down to lower/middle/upper, with different spectrums inside each category. I never figured out concrete rules for being very-poor versus poor versus kinda-poor, though.

And yeah; the impressions we get when we're young are hard to break. I know that, even though I'm solidly upper-middle-class now, I still get the immediate reaction of 'they won't let My Kind in here' when I try to plan fancy vacations or go to swanky restaurants....

[siderea]

Interestingly, and falsely I now know, my parents gave me the strong impression that tradesmen and the working class could never climb above lower middle class unless they transitioned to management which was then a white collar position. Not explicitly taught, of course, but very close to it. My father still believes that steelworkers are not middle class. By virtue of being steelworkers, regardless of savings, or homeownership status. It confuses me.

He's right.

Here's the thing: class is not the same thing as wealth/poverty. That's why the term "nouveau riche" exists. It is possible for a person of the upper classes to become destitute, or for a poor person to win the lottery. The Starbucks barista working for $9/hr who works a second shift at $8/hr to attempt to keep a roof over her and her two kids' heads over in Chelsea is not in the same social class as the Starbucks barista working for $9/hr standing next to her, who is there to supplement her crummy TA-ship while she works on her dissertation.

I'm not saying that class varies entirely freely from how wealthy/poor someone is. Generally, class goes up with wealth -- or more accurately, wealth goes up with class, because the things that move you up in class (as it were) pay dividends.

[rosinavs.livejournal.com]

Interestingly, and falsely I now know, my parents gave me the strong impression that tradesmen and the working class could never climb above lower middle class unless they transitioned to management which was then a white collar position. Not explicitly taught, of course, but very close to it. My father still believes that steelworkers are not middle class. By virtue of being steelworkers, regardless of savings, or homeownership status. It confuses me.

I find this somewhat fascinating. My grandfather was a steelworker. He and my grandmother scrimped and saved to buy the 4-plex they were renting in from her father, and they were probably at best lower middle class.

Of course, that was at a time when it was much easier to own a house than it is today. Salaries were much closer to house prices. I probably couldn't find a house at the same house/salary ratio anywhere within 100 miles of where I currently work. Oddly, even though I also own a house and am probably solidly middle-middle class, I'm not really any better off in terms of debt due to that ratio.

[etherial.livejournal.com]

Didn't your grandfather want to send his sons to college so they could become skilled laborers in the steel mill? That's totally "can't see how to make it out of lower class" thinking.

[rosinavs.livejournal.com]

He didn't want to send them to college, he wanted to send them to a vocational technical high school to learn a trade. Then they would be able to be hired at skilled worker rates in the steel mills, and also be less likely to be laid off. Going to college was my father's idea, and he had to pay to go to the college prep public high school by working at his grandfather's grocery store.

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

That's actually a different version of "class" that's used in other parts of the world. I think the UK uses (used?) it...

In that sense, "class" is about your station in life. A skilled merchant might make more money than a landed noble (especially when the industrial revolution started to take hold), but was still considered to be of a lower class, because one is a noble, and the other just a merchant - almost a *worker*!. In that day, a laborer never made very much, and that's why "working class" is often equated with poverty.

I'd guess that a steelworker would be "working class" and the white collar folks are a different, nominally higher, class, even if the steelworker is making a lot more money. Because in that system, relative wealth isn't part of the measurement.