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Working class in the United States

In the United States, the concept of a working class remains vaguely defined, and classifying people or jobs into this class can be contentious. Economists and pollsters in the United States generally define "working class" adults as those lacking a college degree,[1] rather than by occupation or income. Many members of the working class, as defined by academic models, are often identified in the vernacular as being middle-class, despite there being considerable ambiguity over the term's meaning. According to Frank Newport, "for some, working class is a more literal label; namely, an indication that one is working."[2]

Sociologists such as Dennis Gilbert and Joseph Kahl see the working class as the most populous in the United States,[3] while other sociologists such as William Thompson, Joseph Hickey and James Henslin deem the lower middle class slightly more populous.[4][5] In the class models devised by these sociologists, the working class comprises between 30% and 35% of the population, roughly the same percentages as the lower middle class. According to the class model by Dennis Gilbert, the working class comprises those between the 25th and 55th percentile of society. In 2018, 31% of Americans self described themselves as working class.[2] Retired American adults are less likely to describe themselves as "working class", regardless of the actual income or education level of the adult.[2]

Diseases of despair

Social class in the United States

Strangers in Their Own Land

– extensive oral history from American workers in the 1970s

Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do

White trash

Alvarez, Maximillian (2022). The Work of Living: Working People Talk About Their Lives and the Year the World Broke. . ISBN 978-1682193235.

OR Books

Rubin, Lillian Breslow, Worlds of Pain: Life in the Working Class Family, Basic Books (1976), hardcover  0-465-09245-4; trade paperback, 268 pages, ISBN 0-465-09724-3

ISBN

Shipler, David K., The Working Poor: Invisible in America, Knopf (2004), hardcover, 322 pages,  0-375-40890-8

ISBN

Zweig, Michael, Working Class Majority: America's Best Kept Secret, Cornell University Press (2001), trade paperback, 198 pages,  0-8014-8727-7

ISBN

Joel Rogers and Ruy Teixeira, The Atlantic June, 2000

"America's Forgotten Majority"

Joel Townsley Rogers, Joel Rogers, America's Forgotten Majority: Why the White Working Class Still Matters, Basic Books (June 2000), hardcover, 232 pages,  0465083986 ISBN 978-0465083985

ISBN

blog by Thomas B. Edsall in The New York Times June 25, 2012

"White Working Chaos"

. Report by Angus Deaton and Anne Case for the Brookings Institution, March 23, 2017.

Mortality and morbidity in the 21st century