The Importance Of Class

Zweig makes a claim that class has a “pervasive influence on the way we live, work and think” (2). Class has an effect on most aspects of our lives, from how we are raised, our education, the way we live, to the politics around us. Class is often seen as the income or lifestyle that people fit into; but by creating such a vague definition for class, we lose sight of the reasons that the different classes exist. Even more than that, the general population has been led to believe that classes are a thing of the past-something that used to be important, but is now just a term economists use that has no effect our lives.
Now, the terms upper class, middle class, and lower class are what’s left of class distinctions. In reality, these divide down into much more specific classes-the capitalist class, upper, upper middle, middle, lower middle, underclass, and the working class, which is made up of people in all of the classes and consists of 62% of the population (30).
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Class affects the experiences around us-how we grow up, the people we associate with, the schools we attend, our health, and our opportunities in life. Those who grow up in the upper class have the opportunity to attend the best schools, have plenty of food to eat, associate with what society deems the “best” people. The underclass, or the poor, often have a poor education, are on welfare, and are deemed the undesirables of society.
Even within the middle class, there are more specific class distinctions. The working class makes up 62% of the population (30). As the middle class is only half the size of the working class, the other half must come from other classes (4). By hiding the fact that the middle class exists, we can hide the fact that up to 75% of the unemployed belong in the working class based on their previous job occupations and skill sets (30). So, if so much of the underclass makes up the working class, why do many continue to put them