What Is Middle Class?

Middle Class is a phrase thrown around by politicians, sociologists and just generally by people, but I've started to wonder, what makes one middle class?

There are technical definitions, and that isn't what I'm looking for, I want peoples opinions on what middle class is. Are you middle class? If so what makes you so, if not, what makes you not?

What is middle class?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_class

The middle class are the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socioeconomically between the working class and upper class. This socioeconomic class encompasses the sub-classes of lower middle, middle middle, and upper middle, and includes professionals, highly skilled workers, and management. As in all socioeconomic classes, the middle class is associated with a shared and complex set of cultural values.

I suppose my problem is when is one no longer working class and becomes middle class. Where is the line?

It's a fairly vague notion. There's no explicit official definition.

In other words, it would depend on the context and on who is doing the defining.

I used to think my family were middle class, based on my Father's profession and that I never really wanted for anything in many ways.

Then, in the last few years, I realised just how wrong my perception was and how my parents had done so much to give my sister and I a happy childhood (in the sense of wants and "I need..." ), the value of the area/house I grew up in and through meeting others from varying walks of life.

Cloaking perception is a clever thing me thinks

I think that Jonnythan has it right. I might add that economists use income as a measure of middleclassness. They define middle class as having a median income. Probably Jonnythan is also correct that people associate some attitudes with middle class. One might find an example of this in The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald. Tom Buchanan, a character in the novel, has not given up his middle-class view of life just because his family has become wealthy.

I volunteer at a public high school, which I would call middle class. The parents, who send their children to the school, have a wide range of entrepreneurial careers from painter and plumber to practicing physician. When I tutor students about dihedral angles in tetrahedrons or alliteration in elegiac poetry, I sometimes wonder if the student might grow up to be a Tom or Daisy Buchanan wannabe, who lives on their parents' money.

I think there's quite a difference between the working class and middle class. The working class have fewer time to spend for leisure, less money to spend on appliances, and a generally smaller home that's only made to serve it's purpose. The middle class have what the working class and upper class don't.

teachers and civil servants, but middle class is pretty different nowadays. I just think chris martin and gwyneth paltrow on a few less million.

They have to work for a living but earn enough where they never have to 'need' anything.