Social scientists use 3 common methods to define class—by occupation, income, or education—and there is really no consensus about the “right” way to do it. Michael Zweig, a leading scholar in ...

NPR's Robert Siegel talks to Sherry Linkon, co-director of the Center for Working-Class Studies at Youngstown State University, about the difficulty of defining what "middle class" is today. We asked ...

Re “Ben Franklin’s Nation,” by David Brooks (column, Dec. 14): I agree that it was the social context undergirding capitalism that created the American bourgeoisie, and that we must do a better job of ...

Clive Crook is afraid of the proles. Acknowledging arguments that extreme income inequality is socially and economically unsalutary (reviewed in National Journal by Jonathan Rauch), Crook cautions ...

It seems like a simple question, but it actually has a complicated answer. It depends on how you define "middle class." "It's a sense of security," says Jeffrey Wenger, senior policy researcher at the ...

What does it mean to be middle class? The answer depends on who you ask. Some define the middle class as simply the middle 50% of the U.S. population by income, while others define it by occupation or ...

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... The light on the answering machine was blinking with several messages when I came back into the house after walking the dog on a fine fall afternoon. The ...

Who makes up the middle class? Surveys suggest that half to 90 percent of Americans consider themselves members of the economic middle class. These respondents may have annual gross earnings of ...