Most Americans Say They’re Working Class. Are They?

SPEAKER_1 (0:02)

Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio, News.

Joan C. Williams (0:11)

Our priority is the working class.

Sarah Holder (0:13)

Democrats.

SPEAKER_4 (0:14)

I think it shows you how deeply out of touch the Republican Party is with the concerns of working class Americans.

Sarah Holder (0:19)

Republicans.

Joan C. Williams (0:20)

This is a working families administration.

Sarah Holder (0:23)

This midterm season, everyone's talking about the working class.

SPEAKER_5 (0:28)

And they are really the truly the enemy of the working class.

Sarah Holder (0:32)

But who are the working class really? Politicians, pundits and pollsters have all been asking this question because these days, it seems like there isn't one clear answer.

Is it a cultural signifier? An economic category? Is it about your education? Or is it about working a particular kind of job?

Bertha Bradley (0:54)

When you're talking about working class, you're talking about the people.

Sarah Holder (0:58)

That's Bertha Bradley. She's 67 and lives in Durham, North Carolina.

She goes by Mama Cookie, inspired by a nickname her grandmother gave her.

Bertha Bradley (1:07)

You're talking about my grandmother. She was a working class. My grandfather was a working class. I'm a working class person that's not making enough money, that never made enough money to do anything to help me.

Just enough to get by.

Sarah Holder (1:22)

Bertha says she worked in fast food for 30 years. For 20 of those years, she was also a home health care worker.

Three years ago, she retired from those jobs. But she still works as an activist and organizer with the Union of Southern Service Workers, fighting for fair wages.

Bertha Bradley (1:41)

Working class is when you're sitting there and the federal government is still sitting at $7.25 an hour. When they know that ain't right for 17 years, you can't give up a wage.

Sarah Holder (1:56)

To Bertha, defining the working class isn't so complicated.

Bertha Bradley (2:00)

Working class is people that are struggling every day.

Sarah Holder (2:03)

But as economic conditions change in the US, the people who say they share in that struggle are changing too. A recent Pew survey showed that this year, more Americans are starting to consider themselves working class. Middle-income Americans, Americans without a college degree, and blue-collar workers were especially likely to identify as working class according to Pew. But 50 percent of Americans with college degrees and 50 percent of upper-income Americans did too. So what's behind this working class identity shift?

With the last primary over and general elections just around the corner, could it be a deciding factor for who takes power in Washington and beyond?

I'm Sarah Holder and this is the Big Take from Bloomberg News. Today on the show, we dig into how the definition of working class has evolved over time, and what that moving target could mean for political messaging and policymaking.

Allison Schrager (3:15)

The term has less meaning, and that might not be a bad thing. The labor force is very different. We have this huge change with AI. We honestly don't know how that's going to shake out. So maybe these definitions from the 19th century don't really serve us anyway.

Sarah Holder (3:32)

Earlier this year, Bloomberg Opinion columnist Allison Schrager wrote a piece headlined, Nobody knows what working class even means anymore.

So I wanted her to take us back to a time when the definition was clearer. Allison, when did the idea of a working class emerge in America? Who was this term invented to describe?

Allison Schrager (3:53)

Well, it's described factory workers in the sort of earlier industrial days. Sort of this downtrodden group that didn't have a lot of education, worked physically hard, maybe didn't even have a very long life because of that work, and didn't have a lot of representation.

Sarah Holder (4:09)

And in the 20th century, the idea of the working class wasn't just in economic status, it wasn't just about working hard, not making a lot of money. It was also sort of a political identity. Why was that so important?

Allison Schrager (4:22)

A lot of factory workers organized, you know, in the 20th century, and they also gained a lot of political power. There became this sort of political resonance of the working man, someone who worked with their hands, maybe it was part of a union. And this became the backbone in the mid-20th century of the middle class as well.

And I don't know if you recall Joe the Plumber, a couple of decades ago.

Sarah Holder (4:43)

The prototypical campaign talking point. Joe the Plumber, the middle class American voter, just trying to make it work on a salary.

Allison Schrager (4:52)