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BBC quiz to determine which of 7 new socio-economic classes you belong to

luuknam

By luuknam,
in The Chat Board

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129 members have voted

  1. 1. Where do you fall?

    • Precariat
      3
    • Emergent service workers
      6
    • Traditional working class
      2
    • New affluent workers
      5
    • Technical middle class
      12
    • Established middle class
      49
    • Elite
      52

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luuknam

luuknam

Posted
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http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-22000973

 

Easy for UK boardies, but for the others there's the small downside that translating US and other income after taxes into UK income after taxes is not necessarily all that accurate because of the variable exchange rate and the different tax structure, different COL etc. For example, my estimate put us in "emergent service workers", but with a bit more income we'd be "technical middle class", which is probably a bit more accurate (though I could see us being something in between). But hey, who doesn't love a poll, and it's interesting to consider these alternatives to working/middle/upper class or w/e. 

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eternalsummer

eternalsummer

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That was a weird quiz, I presume because I'm not a member of any British social class so it felt off.  Largely I think I still identify with the social class in which I was raised - I think Traditional Working Class for the purposes of this quiz - but I don't have any of the cultural interests or the income or the social contacts that make me part of this class anymore.  I think a fair part of my ethos is tied to it though, in the way I consider things like charity, work, home ownership, managing money, marriage and family, sociopolitical values, etc.  I was surprised that none of these things were part of the quiz, when in my experience they make up a lot of the difference in attitudes and behavior between the classes, at least in the US.

 

But again, it was a British quiz, so I dunno.

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Twolittleboys

Twolittleboys

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Hm, not sure I really agree. I got "precariat" or "emergent service worker)" (I made some minor changes the second time around). I don't think either really applies though it depends on what one means by "socio-economic class". Actually, I was thinking of it as "social class" and it might fit better as "socio-economic class". Either way, I think personal perception has a lot to do with one's class. On paper we do fit in the "lower" class as our income/wealth just isn't very high, but I do not feel at all like we are on the "bottom" of the heap.

 

I put a lot more weight on factors other than income/wealth (though they are of course related). For me, education and experiences are much more important, especially as income/wealth can fluctuate so much depending on life circumstances.

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Twolittleboys

Twolittleboys

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Huh. I said those same things, but did not get that. Maybe it's the people we know or something. 

 

Well, I took it several times and it doesn't take many changes to get a different result. That seems kind of silly as one or two random changes are unlikely to really influence one's social class. While most of us probably know mostly people in our own or similar class, it is quite likely that we would know someone from school/camp/nursery school etc. with a widely different path. The same is true for hobbies. There is a class component but a lot of it is just personal preference. And I do think it is missing some very important components, like education, travel, reading etc.

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historically accurate

historically accurate

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I got "new affluent workers", but we're lower income and live in a mobile home. Maybe because I visit museums and have savings in 401k? Does the UK have a 401k equivalent or do they have pensions more often?

 

I took it again without visiting museums (since I try to only go on free or discounted days), and I got "traditional working class". 

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eternalsummer

eternalsummer

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Here is an addition I would suggest: the working class people I knew and grew up with, for instance, did not trust big institutional charities and would not give them $.  They did, however, give the homeless guy on the street corner their last $5, or give their neighbor whose car broke down a ride to work for a few weeks while he waited for payday.  The wealthier (even solidly middle-class) people that I've known would prefer for homeless people to get job training and housing and other charity from organizations or city programs, and donate to things like United Way or the Red Cross.

 

Although we make a lot more money now than when we were young or than my parents did as a child, I still prefer giving a homeless guy $20 to giving the Red Cross $20.

 

That's just my experience, but I do think attitudes toward things like that differ among economic classes and would be interesting to evaluate.

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luuknam

luuknam

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I did consider that. We live in a tech-heavy area with several big universities. Our social circle is pretty varied.

 

 

Also, we're renting, which might be a big difference as well (unless you're renting too, of course). 

Edited by luuknam
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luuknam

luuknam

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I couldn't tell if I was supposed to put the market value of my house in vs. the equity after subtracting our mortgage. That makes a big difference!

 

I get different results putting in the market value vs. the equity.

 

 

Hm... some digging got me the study that it's based on:

 

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0038038513481128

 

On page 228-229 they mention "house price" and "property value", the former makes me think market value, the latter I'm less sure of, but that combined with "house price" and the numbers in the table with the mean and standard deviation would make me say market value (unless British houses are way more expensive than I imagine). 

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eternalsummer

eternalsummer

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I wonder how strongly weighted income is.

 

Okay, so I checked - Told them I make more than $200k (approx), had no savings, rent, watched sports, knew only truck drivers and cashiers, listen to rock and rap, etc.

 

Told me I was Elite.

 

So I guess if you make a lot of money, it doesn't matter what you do with your time or who you know :)  Dumb.

 

eta: not that I think what you do with your time or who you know really determines your social class either.  I just think the point of asking all those questions is dumb since they're going to weight income so strongly anyway.

Edited by eternalsummer
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Crimson Wife

Crimson Wife

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Hm... some digging got me the study that it's based on:

 

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0038038513481128

 

On page 228-229 they mention "house price" and "property value", the former makes me think market value, the latter I'm less sure of, but that combined with "house price" and the numbers in the table with the mean and standard deviation would make me say market value (unless British houses are way more expensive than I imagine). 

 

If they're trying to gauge wealth and economic capital, it makes NO sense to me to look at market value rather than home equity. If, for example, I own a $500k house but only have 25% equity, then I've got LESS housing wealth than someone who has paid off the mortgage on a $200k house. Now in a couple of decades when the mortgage is paid off, I will have greater wealth but at the moment I don't.

 

Lots of people these days are "house poor" simply because it's so expensive to buy a home in many metro areas.

 

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luuknam

luuknam

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If they're trying to gauge wealth and economic capital, it makes NO sense to me to look at market value rather than home equity. If, for example, I own a $500k house but only have 25% equity, then I've got LESS housing wealth than someone who has paid off the mortgage on a $200k house. Now in a couple of decades when the mortgage is paid off, I will have greater wealth but at the moment I don't.

 

 

Right... if you just look at house price, you're mostly just using a second way to measure income level. Though I guess it would catch those people whose income is low but who have an expensive house (e.g. some retired people, or some people who inherited a bunch of money).

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luuknam

luuknam

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Hey, there's a page about how the (presumably British) readers reacted to it too:

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-22025272

 

Some of them are pretty funny and/or on point.

 

"Emergent service workers is basically code for 'urban keyboard slave', isn't it?" - @WillardFoxton

 

So, yeah... we're somewhere in between "urban keyboard slave" and "technical middle class" (still leaning towards being in the latter, especially since DW's recent promotion). 

Edited by luuknam
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Seasider

Seasider

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Right... if you just look at house price, you're mostly just using a second way to measure income level. Though I guess it would catch those people whose income is low but who have an expensive house (e.g. some retired people, or some people who inherited a bunch of money).

I think it's more a measure of assets than income. Because if you bought a house a long time ago, and don't spend a whole lot on a mortgage payment anymore, but your area has suddenly become trendy and increased in value....that doesn't necessarily mean you have a high cash flow.

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lavender's green

lavender's green

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Posted

I got elite. :lol:

 

I noticed it didn't take much to upset the balances of things they measured. And it was hard to know how things translate into UK terms. I know from UK friends that housing is more expensive, different proportions of money go to taxes, etc. We have a nice little nest egg (for our age) going for retirement, but I have no idea how retirement is handled there. Like, would it mean more money in my checking account, or would a similar amount go to a government pension plan, or is it all private...? And I probably have a wider circle of friends by virtue of having been to a large international university and living in a large-ish city, but coming from a more working-to-lower-middle class background. Finally, our income didn't go nearly as far when we lived in a large coastal metro area. Now we live in a smaller inland city on the same amount. It's stunning how much further it goes.

 

I used to follow a now-defunct blog of a friend of a friend, both in the UK. The author of the blog was definitely elite, by any measure. I mean, just as one example, she got pregnant by accident, married the father (a baron!) and lived happily ever after in a freakin' castle. The same has happened to a few of our cousins, so pretty similar backgrounds to what DH and I have, and...life is not so sweet. Cycles of generational poverty, single parenthood, barely getting by with government help, having government help taken away the moment they get a minimum wage job, issues with addiction and child support, the list goes on and on. It's not pretty. Now I'm sure the above isn't what always happens when a girl of the true elite gets pregnant, and maybe some of our cousins have had a particularly bad go of things. I just think the quiz doesn't work so well if someone like me (with the same background as my cousins) is considered the same as people like that blogger, whose life has a decidedly different trajectory, even with the same accidental pregnancy.

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desertstrawberry5

desertstrawberry5

Posted
Posted

Established Middle Class. 

I don't have a social circle here outside of my family. My family is much better off than we are (and better off than most Americans), so I think my association with them raised my class several notches. If we had done this a couple of years ago, we would have surely been precariate. 

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Crimson Wife

Crimson Wife

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I think it's more a measure of assets than income. Because if you bought a house a long time ago, and don't spend a whole lot on a mortgage payment anymore, but your area has suddenly become trendy and increased in value....that doesn't necessarily mean you have a high cash flow.

 

But you've got a lot more housing wealth than your yuppie neighbors who only own a small fraction of their houses while the bank owns most.

 

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Seasider

Seasider

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But you've got a lot more housing wealth than your yuppie neighbors who only own a small fraction of their houses while the bank owns most.

 

Yes, that's true, but it's an asset, not necessarily cash flow, was the point I was making upstream. So it doesn't really add to one's income, but rather one's net worth.

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Crimson Wife

Crimson Wife

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Yes, that's true, but it's an asset, not necessarily cash flow, was the point I was making upstream. So it doesn't really add to one's income, but rather one's net worth.

 

The only asset of yours is the equity. The market value is irrelevant in terms of your net worth. If you and I both have $150k in home equity, it doesn't matter if your house is worth $150k and mine worth $500k- our assets are the same (at least as far as housing goes).

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Seasider

Seasider

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Posted (edited)

The only asset of yours is the equity. The market value is irrelevant in terms of your net worth. If you and I both have $150k in home equity, it doesn't matter if your house is worth $150k and mine worth $500k- our assets are the same (at least as far as housing goes).

I completely get what you are saying!!!!!!!

 

The point I was making upthread had to do with someone's speculation that one's home value was perhaps added to income for purposes of this BBC quiz. That's all.

 

ETA, fwiw, in the original example I gave, I was specifically talking about folks who'd been in their home a long time, who would have likely paid off the mortgage and only have monthly taxes and insurance.

Edited by Seasider
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Mabelen

Mabelen

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I lived in the U.K. for over 12 years, still have some assets there. I had to add to that what we have here, plus our US income. The thing is, our US income after taxes is a lot higher than what we'd be earning there, but we have a lot of expenses that we would not have there. I am pretty sure I would not be spending as much in my daughter's college education, our family's medical care, nor would we be having to save so aggressively for retirement. As far as equivalent housing costs, well, if you are looking at square footage, houses there are usually smaller, so if you are looking for the same space you have here, then it will cost you a lot!

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