Social Class in America

Two-hundred-fifty years ago, former colonists renounced their allegiance to the British Crown and created a union of independent states, with ideals of freedom and equality. Titles of nobility were abolished. Citizens were to be equal under the law. For all its shortfalls, the Founders’ vision implied a far less rigid class system than in Downton Abbey (set 1912-28 in England), which I’m watching on library DVDs.

My father was a professor of sociology. As best I remember, he told me social class rested largely on ancestry, wealth/income, and either education or occupation (I forget which).  His salary was modest, his ancestry meaningless outside smalltown British Columbia, but West Virginians held education in high regard. When Dad met former students in the grocery store, they greeted each other with warmth and mutual respect.

The United States has never been a classless society, nor did the Founders intend it to be. The promise of America was the possibility of rising from one class to another. As a kid, I took it as given that each generation earns more than their parents did. That was true for more than 90 percent of Americans born in 1940. It held for only half of those born in the mid-1980s.

Today, rags-to-riches stories are rare. The household wealth gap last year was the highest since tracking began 37 years ago. While a soaring stock market helps the rich get richer, the poor get poorer under a crushing burden of debt. Whether to promote this or reverse it is up to us.

Image: Photos on Unsplash by (left) Louis Moncouyoux and (right) James Day.