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 |
