In the US, the term working class is a pretty big misnomer, enough so to cause misunderstandings.
To my mind, someone in the working class should be someone who works for a living.
To my mind, someone in the working class should be someone who works for a living.
> When used non-academically in the United States, however, it often refers to a section of society dependent on physical labor, especially when compensated with an hourly wage.[0]
Your definition is much closer to the Marxist definition which is basically "anyone who trades time for money" which describes the vast majority of the world.
Here in the UK people will cling to being part of their class as though their life depends on it.
Middle class people had rather die than be called 'working class'. The working class hates the middle class with an intense passion, thinking they all eat kale, basically live at Starbucks and try to turn England into a communist utopia.
Class divisions just play into the hands of the one and only class that's different from the people who work for money: Those who do not have to.
If society was nicely split into "those who work for money and those who do not", I believe it would very quickly become clear who is acting in whose interest.
But so long as the veil of "working vs. middle, vs. upper middle" shrouds our collective ability to see who is truly ruining it for everyone, nothing will change.
But clarity is important. I have more in common with the business owner who could stop working but chooses not to than I do with the line cook making $10/hr, even if the financial interests of the business owner are diametrically opposed to my own (I'm not conceding that point, mind you).
I don't understand what is so problematic about understanding there are drastically different economic classes in society. Understanding where those boundaries lie and the differences between them leads to greater clarity in the issues facing all classes.