Ep. 91: It's Time to Retire the Term "Middle Class"

“Building a wall won't save America's crumbling middle class,” Elizabeth Warren tells us. “Sanders healthcare will raise taxes on the middle class,” a CNN headline reads. “There’ war on the middle class,” a Boston Globe editorial laments.   

The term “middle class” is used so much by pundits and politicians, it could easily be the Free Space in any political rhetoric Bingo card. After all, who’s opposed to strengthening, widening, and protecting the “middle class”? Like “democracy,” “freedom,” and “human rights”, “middle class” is an unimpeachable, unassailable label that evokes warm feelings and a sense of collective morality.

But the term itself, always slippery and changing based on context, has evolved from a vague aspiration marked by safety, a nice home, and a white picket fence into something more sinister, racially-coded, and deliberately obscuring. The middle class isn’t about concrete, material positive rights of good housing and economic security––it’s a capitalist carrot hovering over our heads telling us such things are possible if we Only Work Harder. More than anything, it's a way for politicians to gesture towards populism without the messiness of mentioning––much less centering––the poor and poverty.

This week we are joined by Jane McAlevey, a union organizer, scholar and Senior Policy Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley’s Labor Center.

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Guest

Jane McAlevey is a union organizer, scholar and Senior Policy Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley’s Labor Center, part of the Institute for Labor & Employment Relations. Her latest book, A Collective Bargain: Unions, Organizing and the Fight for Democracy,  will be published by Ecco/HarperCollins on January 7, 2020. 

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Show Notes

“Middle Class” is a White Racial Construct

Christopher Petrella and Ameer Hasan Loggins | April 16, 2018 | African American Intellectual Society

The Rise of ‘Middle Class’ as an Ordinary American Term

Derek Willis | May 14, 2015 | Thew New York Times

This is why everyone thinks they are middle class (even if they aren’t)

Pavithra Mohan | April 14, 2019 | Fast Company 

Here’s Why Almost Everyone Thinks They Are Part of the Middle Class

Sissi Cao | May 9, 2018 | The New York Observer

The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy

Matthew Stewart | June 2018 | The Atlantic

You might not actually be middle-class

Michael Grothaus | October 29, 2018 | Fast Company

A dozen ways to be middle class

Richard V. Reeves, Katherine Guyot, and Eleanor Krause | May 8, 2018 | Brookings

There are many definitions of "middle class" - here's ours

 Richard V. Reeves and Katherine Guyot | September 4, 2018 | Brookings 

Most millionaires say they’re middle class

Robert Frank | May 6, 2015 | CNBC

Why Rich People Think They're in the Middle Class

Jay Livingston | April 28, 2015 | Pacific Standard

Why Americans All Believe They Are 'Middle Class'

Anat Shenker-Osorio | August 1, 2013 | The Atlantic

The Sacrificial Rites of Capitalism We Don’t Talk About

Lynn Parramore | August 26, 2019 | Institute for New Economic Thinking

Few with Family Incomes of $100K+ Embrace the Label ‘Upper Class’

 March 4, 2015 | Pew Research Center

The American Middle Class Is Losing Ground

 December 9, 2015 | Pew Research Center 

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Transcript

For a full transcript of this episode go here. 

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