7.3 Social Class Structure in the United States
LO 7.3: Describe social class structure.
Contemporary sociologists emphasize that social class is a form of stratification based on the relationship between income, wealth, education, and occupation (see Table 7.2) (Wright, 2015). Considering only one factor in Table 7.2 can be misleading. For instance, some occupations have wide-ranging salaries, such as a professor, lawyer, or doctor. Table 7.2 also does not account for other relevant factors, such as place. Some places have a higher cost of living. A salary that may place a household in the upper class in Indiana might make them middle class in New York or California.
Table 7.2
Characteristics of Social Class Categories
| Class Category | Household Income Range | Wealth | Education achieved | Sample Occupations | Percentage of U.S. Adults |
| Upper class | Greater than $169,800 | Housing, Business assets, Financial assets (stocks, bonds, securities) | Elite college | Hedge fund managers, Executives | 19% |
| Middle class | $56,000 – $169,800 | Housing, Financial assets | College, vocational training | Managers, Skilled manual laborers, Teachers, Nurses | 52% |
| Lower class | Less than $56,000 | Little to no savings | Some or no college | Retail and service workers, Low-skilled manual labor | 28% |
Income (for households of three people) and percent of U.S. adults based on Fry, R. (2024, September 16). Are you in the American middle class? Find out with our income calculator. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/09/16/are-you-in-the-american-middle-class/. Copyright 2024 by Pew Research Center. Occupations are based on Gilbert, D. L. (2020). The American class structure in an age of growing inequality (11th ed.). SAGE Publications. Copyright 2020 by SAGE Publications. Financial assets based on Piketty, T. (2022). A brief history of equality (S. Rendall, Trans.). The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. (Original work published 2021). Copyright 2022 by The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Social class includes lifestyle and identity as well. For example, class categories are also about what someone can afford, especially “housing, health care, and higher education” (Semuels & Luscombe, 2022). Since the 1970s, incomes for the bottom half of the U.S. population have not grown at the same rate as the market value of goods and services that they produce (Leicht & Fitzgerald, 2023). The income created by economic growth has increased wealth at the top but not for the people producing the goods and services. As a result, many members of the middle class now struggle to afford housing and the lifestyle associated with this social tier and are using debt to bridge the gap.