this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2026
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The classic definition of middle class was, as far as I learned it, making enough money that you could afford to pay for your family's expenses without needing your wife to also work.
This came out of the poor working conditions in factories in the 1800s, where people often were hurt, maimed, or even killed (compared to today, this was quite common). If you made enough money that only one family member had to suffer (at this time it was always the husband), that was the bare minimum to be considered middle class. This was regardless of income, it was more about what you could afford.
Prior to this, I'm not sure middle class was really much of a concept. Most groups were separated by trade and upbringing, and pretty much overall separating the low class from artisans, merchants, nobility, and royalty, with no real middle class afaik. It was, for example, quite common for artisan families to all work together
Edit: i feel compelled to share that i studied history for my degree, and i am sharing one of the definitions i was taught.
From Wikipedia.
I thought we were talking classical definitions, not the definition/s currently considered common according to Wikipedia.
I had no intention of declaring your personal financial situation. I was trying to provide historical context for the term (as far as I know).
No we were talking about your understanding of what middle class means but if you are going to to be pedantic:
I'm not sure where the combativeness is coming from. I came in to share my understanding of the origin of the concept of middle class. I was not intending on being pedantic.
There's no need to aggressively copy and paste a few Wikipedia articles and pretend to be an expert
I find it very weird that you think I’m pretending to be an expert when I am going by what other people have written and you are going by “your understanding” and feel they are equivalent. The combativeness is coming from the pedantry, once again on this site I shared a personal anecdote and now I have multiple people taking me to task about my understanding of my life based on knowing the equivalent of a tweet about me.