Alice: Middle class, me, I’m kind of like middle class. Cause a lot of people can’t get jobs, some people do have jobs and it’s hard to get jobs.

Duffy: Or matt, a manager at a manufacturing company...

Matt: I would say that I’m middle class. If I looked at my income and the support network that I have to support, we fall into middle class.

Duffy: Or Sherri, a stay at home mom in one of Hudson’s most prestigious neighborhoods...

Sherri: I would say middle class, just because it seems like we’re all middle class.

Duffy: These three individuals come from vastly different socio-economic backgrounds, but all define themselves as middle class. That doesn’t surprise Kent State University sociologist Elaine hall.

Elaine Hall: It’s very typical. There’s been research on this which shows in people’s self perception of themselves but also if you ask them to calculate or define how many classes or even if you give them the terms what proportion is on each of these classes, middle class gets to be the largest, the geometric figure is like a diamond, we’re like a diamond with a little wealthy, a little poor in about equal amounts and then this huge middle class and that’s not the distribution at all. We’re—and it’s getting worse—a very narrow huge tear drop. The largest social class historically and currently has been working class.

Duffy: There are many factors that go into defining someone’s class. An individual’s education, occupation, and lifestyle all play into it, but most social scientists begin with money. The median household income in Ohio is $43,000 a year. The poorest 20% of Ohio households live on less than $15,000 a year. Want to be rich? An annual income of $126,000 puts you in the top 5%, and you can earn more than 99% of all Ohioans if you make more than $261,000 a year. So, going back to our fictional driver’s license form, if you want to check the middle class box, your household income should be roughly between $35-75,000. Hall says the reason everyone else picks middle class is complicated, but one reason is that most of the people we know tends to be just like us.

Hall: I think everyone sees themselves according to their reference group but the interesting sociological issue is why do people living a fairly wealthy lifestyle look around and say this is middle class and then people living in the lower strata, poverty, lower class or even the poor say I’m middle class too. One of the most dominant aspects of it is the “American dream.” The ideology of what America is. And that involves equal opportunity...we’re a meritocracy, and effort is rewarded economically...you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps...the everybody can be president...etcetera. And then a focus on individualism that it’s individual effort...those core beliefs are not going to produce a great awareness of class difference.

Duffy: This cultural ideology and mythology creates an atmosphere where we cannot define class in America simply by economics. Class lines become fuzzy and overlap when factors like education, occupation, social status and etiquette are included. For example, Pam, another upper income woman from Hudson says a college professor making $30,000 a year would be considered in a higher class than an auto mechanic making twice that amount.

Pam: You know a college professor is probably someone who would be “acceptable” for an upper middle class person to invite to a dinner party, whereas the auto mechanic wouldn’t.

Duffy: Pam says she and her friends would have more in common with the professor, because of his education—more to offer.

Pam: What they’re bringing to the table verses the auto mechanic that’s probably not going to have a lot of other social skills, and won’t be able to talk to you about issues or literature or what they’re involved in. You know the auto mechanic is probably not involved in outside activities that the middle-to-upper class person can relate to. The professor probably is.

Duffy: Pam also believes people in the upper and middle classes can be identified by how they treat others (i.e. giving back to the community) or having good manners. An individual’s etiquette seems to become more important the higher one rises in class. Alice, who lives with her three children in a tiny apartment in Akron, never sat up from her reclining position on the couch during our interview. I knelt on the carpet that stained my pants while she told me that it was important for her to have manners since she was in the middle class, because people in the lower class don’t have them.

Alice: In the low class you know they don’t care. They don’t care what people think about them and they’re just disrespectful to other people. They don’t care what other people think. If they do this or do that, so what, you know?

Duffy: One economic characteristic that can be found in every class is people living beyond their means. Hall says this feeling of living paycheck to paycheck, even if that paycheck is very large, erodes any feeling of wealth an upper income person might feel. Pam says she believes many people living upper class lifestyles are over-extended.

Pam: I think that there are so many people, particularly in Hudson, who are living like they are making much more money than they probably really are. In terms of their homes, their cars, where their children go to school, etc. The baby boomers live a lifestyle often times they can’t afford.

Duffy: The United States is the most highly stratified society in the industrial world, but many people go into debt to live a lifestyle they can’t afford. Hall says Americans have found a way to talk about racial differences, and gender differences, but we still don’t have the vocabulary to talk about a structure that maintains haves and have nots.

Hall: It’s un-American. There’s something inherently wrong to be talking about major group differences due to social structure.

Duffy: And besides, what would be the point, since we’re all middle class?