Working-class people define ‘lower class’ by visible daily-life markers not income

Evidence

By and large those in the lower orders are those who are paid daily (not weekly) or are on relief; they live in slums or in public housing projects (but not middle income projects); they do not live respectable lives; they have only grammar school education; they may have no regular jobs. Closer to home, those slightly lower in status are people like “The lady next door who has a little less than I have,” the man who can’t afford to take care of his kids properly in the project, people who spend their money on liquor, the person with less skill in the same line of work. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2225

Categorization

• DEFINE: A useful list of how ordinary people operationalize class boundaries — pay frequency, housing type, perceived respectability, drinking habits — versus formal SES measures.
• XREF: connects to: Empirical social-psychological research cannot reveal revolutionary prospects in the working class — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 230