Opinion: What we don’t talk about when we talk about the ‘working class’

Since Donald Trump defeated Kamala Harris, pundits and politicians have been trying to figure out why the country’s working class is moving to the right.

But what often gets lost in these conversations is this simple fact: There isn’t a single neat definition of “working class.” Some analysts focus on someone’s education as an indicator of class; others look at people’s incomes or jobs. A more traditional definition of “working class” encompasses both blue- and white-collar workers alike.

The problem with having such a vague — or in some cases broad — definition of “working class” is that it becomes politically meaningless to talk about the working-class vote.

According to a recent Pew survey, the majority of Americans consider themselves working class. That also includes many people making higher incomes: Nearly 60 percent of Republicans in the upper-income tier (based on the size of household and cost of living) identify themselves as working class. For Democrats in the same income bracket, 33 percent identified that way.

So what do analysts mean when they say “working class”? Usually, they are implicitly referring to one of three informal metrics: a person’s job, their household income, or their level of education. But each of these measures tells only part of the story.

Take someone’s occupation, for example. A common image that politicians conjure up when talking about the working class is that of a unionized manufacturing worker, but that image of the working class no longer captures what many people are referring to.

Working-class workers aren’t tied to any particular industry. As the United States lost manufacturing jobs, it also saw a rise in service industry jobs that had lower unionization rates, lower pay, and fewer benefits, which is especially true in women-dominated fields. These jobs are often considered “working class,” despite not being union gigs, because of the lack of economic security that comes along with them.

Another often-used measure of class is income or wealth. On the surface, income might seem like the easiest way to understand class divides, but there isn’t a rigid income bracket for any given class because someone’s class varies depending on their household’s size or their region’s cost of living. Typically, someone living from paycheck to paycheck is viewed as working class, while someone who can save a bit of money and live in relative stability is viewed as more middle class.

But someone’s current income or wealth doesn’t necessarily determine their class. Class “is related to economic security and opportunity,” said Katherine Cramer, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. People who have college degrees, for example, have more job stability and are more likely to make more money in the future, even if their current income is relatively low.

That leads to another way we define working class: whether or not someone has a college degree. People without college degrees, after all, tend to fill the kinds of jobs associated with the working class: jobs in manufacturing or in the service industry.

This is often the implied definition in political conversations because it’s much easier to measure in polls. But the problem with this definition is that education doesn’t always determine someone’s economic status. Adjunct professors are a good example. Though adjunct professors are typically seen as part of the elite instead of working class, they are often paid very little. According to one study, nearly a quarter of adjunct professors earn less than $25,000 a year.

Given how broad and muddled the definition of the term can be and just how many Americans identify as working class, talking about the so-called working-class vote is probably not all that illuminating. Focusing on the details of voters’ backgrounds, on the other hand, can be more helpful in breaking down the Democrats’ and Republicans’ weaknesses in their coalitions.

That’s not to say that there is no such thing as the working class or that a person’s class doesn’t impact the way they vote — but when the definition of working class is so loose and means different things in various contexts, it doesn’t help us get a better understanding of how class is shaping partisan politics in America. As the Pew poll suggests, if the majority of Republicans earning a high income identify as working class, their voting patterns don’t tell us anything about how poor or lower-income people feel.

That’s why when analyzing election data, it’s best to stick to terms that better identify someone’s socioeconomic status: How did poor people vote compared to rich people? How did lower-middle-class people vote compared to upper-middle-class people? Why is the partisan gap between college and non-college voters widening?

All of those answers would explain the role of class in American politics much better than a term whose definition no one can seem to agree on.

Abdallah Fayyad is a correspondent at Vox, where he covers a range of issues related to race and class, including housing, criminal justice, and democracy. Originally published by Vox and distributed by Tribune Content Agency.

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