"Every political movement, across the full spectrum of ideologies, is desperately vying for this group’s vote in November. Yet very few have offered a precise definition of who they are actually talking about when they say “working class”. There is a tension here, a split in how we define this demographic that is paramount to understanding modern American populism."
"We’ve built an entire political vocabulary around a group that everyone claims to represent and nobody has bothered to define. In the gap between the image and the reality, the people who actually need help keep getting left out."
"It is in this failure that the simmering populist energy now visible across the full political spectrum has been forged. There is an enormous, bipartisan population living under the pressure of these policies, and they are demanding change faster than either party seems capable of delivering it."
"And it is here where we can find the true definition of working class. A group defined not by occupation or income bracket, but by precarity: people living on the edge of a cliff, one medical emergency, one surprise bill, one lost shift away from the architecture of their lives falling apart. 76% of Americans now have little to no financial safety net, up from 68% in 2021. That number has grown steadily, across every region and demographic."
Posted by Sullence
4 Comments
> [76% of Americans](https://civicscience.com/living-paycheck-to-paycheck-in-an-era-of-financial-distress-and-survival-mode-mentality/) now have little to no financial safety net
So… the way they got this stat is by taking this graph:
https://preview.redd.it/xrbhfk0vakih1.png?width=966&format=png&auto=webp&s=8b82ce5a49b632ca4eee7a17e66d7b982a984929
And then claiming that anybody who didn’t say they have a *lot* of money left after expenses has little or no safety net! This seems very wrong to me. I would not say I have a lot left after expenses, but I still have a large safety net, because I’ve saved over time.
The 76% figure is doing lots of heavy lifting. Firstly, only 21% of people are entirely unable to save money, and another 55% regularly have “a little” left, opposed to 24% having “a lot” left over. Lumping the majority who can save some money monthly in with those who can’t is somewhat misleading.
But being able to save money regularly is not the same as having savings. The examples given in the text, such as a medical emergency or a surprise bill, those need to come from the total savings, not from the monthly surplus. And if only 21% of people across gen pop are entirely unable to save money, the rest can put money aside and build up savings for such emergencies. So, it’s not as dire as the text suggests. Most people can save up money.
Also, according to the source, 9% of those making 150k+ a year can’t save at all, and 40% of them can only save “a little”. Forgive my populism, but if you make this much and can’t save “a lot”, I think you might have a budgeting issue.
Working class is both Bryce Harper and the 16 year old who works at McDonald’s. Owning class is both Elon musk and the guy who runs a landscaping business who hired 2 employees.
“Working Class” was always a weird term for me because it’s huge. If it’s “people who work for a living and not off of their assets” that’s like 98% of people.