Many policymakers today claim to speak for the struggles that working families face, but any vision for America that promises to revitalize the working class must recognize who its members actually are and the challenges they face. The working class—defined as workers without a four-year college degree—makes up almost two-thirds of the workforce and is more racially and ethnically diverse than the college-educated workforce. Moreover, more than three-quarters of working-class Americans work in the service sector and workers without college degrees are more likely to have occupations that pay low wages.
This article offers key demographic and economic insights for policymakers who want to improve economic conditions for the working class. Updating previous research from the Center for American Progress, these data points reflect the demographic and economic situations of the working class today. (see Methodology below)
Defining the working class
Definitions vary for what makes an individual “working class.” This article defines an individual without a four-year college degree as “working class” and an individual with a four-year college degree or higher credential as “college educated.” Although other measures of this group can include wealth or income, these measures are stronger indicators of age or career status rather than of class affiliation. Individual attitudes toward class membership can be harder to measure and vary considerably based on noneconomic factors.
Who is the working class?
A large majority of America’s workers are working class, although the working class makes up a smaller share of the workforce nearly every year as college attainment increases. As shown in Figure 1, 60.7 percent of the labor force in 2023—totaling 93.6 million people—did not have a four-year college degree, compared with 39.3 percent with a college degree. Although this represents a smaller share than it did in the 1990s, when more than 90 percent of the labor force was working class, the working-class economic experience remains the most widely shared in the United States.
Working conditions in the service sector are particularly important for policymakers interested in improving the lives of the working class. Figure 2 shows the proportions of workers without four-year college degrees who work in the service sector, construction, manufacturing, and agriculture. More than three-quarters, or 78 percent, of the working class works in services, with 12.8 percent working in construction, 8.3 percent working in manufacturing, and less than 1 percent working in agriculture.
The working class is more racially and ethnically diverse than the college-educated workforce. While a bare majority of 53.4 percent of the working class is non-Hispanic white (Figure 3), roughly two-thirds, or 65.9 percent, of workers with four-year college degrees are white. In particular, the working class has larger proportions of Black and Hispanic workers compared with the college-educated workforce: 13.3 percent of the working class is Black and roughly one-quarter is Hispanic, while only 8.5 percent of workers with four-year college degrees are Black and 10.5 percent are Hispanic.
The working class struggles economically
Working-class Americans face economic difficulties that are not as common among workers with college degrees. Figure 4 shows median annual wage or salary income for the top 10 largest occupations for both the working class and college-educated workforces. Service jobs are dominant among both the working class and college-educated workforces, but the types of work differ: Working-class jobs tend to pay lower wages compared with the higher prevalence of high-wage “knowledge economy” service jobs among workers with college degrees. The most common occupations for working-class people include truck drivers, laborers, janitors, clerks and cashiers, and home health aides; software developers, accountants, lawyers, chief executives, and physicians are prevalent among workers with college degrees. Figure 4 also shows that wages for the most common working-class occupations are far lower compared with those for common occupations for college-educated workers. Even in managerial occupations—by far the most common for both working-class and college-educated workers—working-class managers earned a median annual wage income of $65,000 compared with $103,000 for college-educated managers. Policies that strengthen working-class economic power should be focused on improving job quality in these common occupations and making it easier for workers to organize.
Occupational differences between the working class and the rest of the labor force significantly affect workers’ ability to support themselves and their families. Members of the working class earn far less than workers with four-year college degrees. As shown in Figure 5, the median worker without a four-year college degree earned $47,000 in 2022, compared with $85,000 for the median college-educated worker. While demographic differences—especially age (as incomes rise with more work experience) but also race, gender, and marital status—affect income, the difference between wages for workers with and without college degrees is similar after controlling for demographic factors, with college-educated workers earning 75 percent more than similar workers without college degrees in 2022.
Not only do working class people earn less, they also have a harder time finding a job than college-educated workers. The unemployment rate for the working class was twice as high in 2023, at just less than 5 percent, compared with only 2.3 percent for workers with four-year college degrees, meaning even workers who want to find a job have a harder time doing so without a college degree. (see Figure 6) In many occupations common for working-class people, workers are both easier to replace and more sensitive to the economic cycle of boom and bust, with retail workers having a harder time finding jobs outside of busy holiday shopping seasons and construction workers dependent on investments in local construction projects.
The reasons for poorer economic prospects for working-class Americans are varied, but declining union density warrants special attention. Although union membership has long been seen as an alternative route to the middle class for workers without college degrees, allowing workers to bargain collectively for higher wages and better working conditions that in turn help build wealth, union density for workers without college degrees has steadily declined over the past several decades, reaching a historical low of just 9 percent in 2024. This is lower than the union membership rate for college-educated workers, indicating how hard current law makes it for workers—especially those without much economic power—to form unions.
Conclusion
Policymakers need to understand that the working class in America is large, diverse, and struggling economically. A plan to strengthen working families must be accessible to the whole of the working class and meaningfully address the economic factors that have created low wages and few opportunities for upward mobility. Advocates that are serious about building working-class economic power should focus on strategies that build power and improve working conditions in working-class jobs.
Methodology
This analysis uses data from the 2023 American Community Survey (ACS), conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau and published by IPUMS-USA.
The analysis includes only members of the labor force older than 18 who are not students or members of the military. Analysis of occupations is further restricted to include only full-time workers who reported working for more than 50 weeks in the previous year, and wage analysis includes only full-time workers.
ACS uses an occupational classification scheme that separates a very large group of working-class employees, home health aides, into two different occupation groups: “home health aides” and “personal care aides.” The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Standard Occupation Classification combines these two occupations into a single group, “home health and personal care aides,” for some of its data products, and this analysis replicates this approach to avoid obscuring the large size of this occupation group. Management occupations are typically split by industry but were combined here into a single occupation group.
The ACS occupation codes for the occupations listed in Figure 4 are 2310 for “Elementary and middle school teachers”; 3255 for “Registered nurses”; 1021 for “Software developers”; 800 for “Accountants and auditors”; 2100 for “Lawyers”; 0010 for “Chief executives”; 2320 for “Secondary school teachers”; 2205 for “Postsecondary teachers”; 3090 for “Physicians”; 9130 for “Delivery and truck drivers”; 9620 for “Manual freight or material movers”; 4220 for “Janitors and building cleaners”; 4700 for “Retail supervisors”; 5240 for “Customer service representatives”; 4760 for “Retail salespersons”; 4720 for “Cashiers”; and 6260 for “Construction laborers.” “Home health aides” includes occupational codes 3601 and 3602; “Managers” includes all occupational codes from 0020 to 0440.
One question on the ACS asks respondents to describe whether they are of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin; a second question that lacks these options prompts respondents to indicate their race. As a result, an individual can identify as both Hispanic or Latino as well as a member of any other racial or ethnic group. For this analysis, the author refers to respondents as Hispanic or Latino if they stated that they are of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin in the first question. In the rest of the racial or ethnic groups—white, Black or African American, and other or multiple races—the author included only non-Hispanic respondents to avoid double-counting some respondents.