Ask someone their class and they will almost always answer “middle.” Sociologists need something steadier than a feeling, so they read markers — income, wealth, occupation, education, and lifestyle. Tap a rung to see what each class actually looks like, switch the shading to compare one marker across the whole ladder, then try placing eight people by their markers alone.
Six rungs, one society
The class structuretap a rung to begin
Five markers of class
Status inconsistency. Gerhard Lenski’s term for the common case in which the markers disagree — a plumbing contractor who out-earns a professor, a curator with a graduate degree and a modest salary. Because the markers can come apart, no single number ranks a person.