the working class
Wage earners collectively
The working class is the social stratum that earns wages through manual or industrial labor rather than salaries or investments.
The term carries political weight, often invoking solidarity among those who work with their hands: a candidate who appeals to the working class.
In Marxist theory, the working class (proletariat) sells its labor to the capitalist class.
The boundaries blur in modern economies where service workers and office employees may also identify as working class based on income, education, or cultural affiliation rather than the nature of their work.
- blue-collarManual labor workforce
- hard hatProtective headgear for worksites
- labor unionCollective bargaining group
- union duesPayments to labor organizations
- proletariatLaborers lacking capital ownership
Karl Marx · shop floor · punch clock · nine to five · living wage · Industrial Revolution · minimum wage · collective bargaining · janitor · folk music · wage labor · solidarity · socialism · labor movement · miner · socialist theory · truck driver · paycheck to paycheck
the working classthe upper class
Wealthy, privileged social stratum
the rich · the elite · the one percent · high society · old money
work, class, working, worked, works, worker, workers, workable, workings