The American class system

who belongs to

Name of the class

the characteristic

-power elite:

*multi millionaires

*business inventors

*financiers

-high-prestige politicians

-military leaders

The ruling class

-top of America's society

-a "good" family name, which could

be traced back to the WASPs*

-social, political and financial power

until today

-professionals

(doctors, lawyers)

-business executives

-managers

-technologists

The upper middle class

-people who are wealthy and often

have a doctor's degree

-schoolteachers

-social workers

-small businessmen

-shopkeepers

-white-collar workers (clerks)

-blue-collar workers

(skilled craftsmen)

The middle class

-backbone of the nation

-quantitatively and qualitatively

the most powerful force

-have improved their economic

situation

-obtained skilled jobs

-moved into well-to-do-suburbs

-a decade after the violent

sixties a third of the Blacks

managed it to belong to this

class

-assembly-line factory workers

-deliverymen

-truck drivers

-miners

-janitors

-shop assistants

The working class

-regularly employed or semi-skilled

workers

-unemployed

-casual labourers

-migrant farm workers

-the poor

The poor class/

the underclass

-looked down by everybody else

-live in miserable conditions, in

shabby "downtown" areas

-mostly Blacks or Hispanics