Royal trouble for middle class ... whatever that means these days

Billboard not yet spotted along state Route 99:

Will the last middle-class family leaving Seattle please turn out the lights?

The future -- or lack thereof -- of the middle class has been on the minds of a lot of people lately. Escalating housing prices have many worried that the middle class is being priced out of the city. Three locals of the United Food and Commercial Workers union are sponsoring a Town Hall forum Sunday that asks, "Is Puget Sound losing its middle class?"

The topic is generating chatter well beyond our little corner of the map. Nationally, job, pay and benefit cuts have many people worried whether they can attain, or maintain, middle-class status. The condition of the middle class is likely to get more than a few mentions in the 2008 election cycle.

Internationally, marketers watch with lustful eyes the potential of an emerging middle class in China and India that could be, even if representing only a modest percentage of the population of those countries, larger than the total population of the United States.

There's so much talk about the middle class, in fact, that it has drowned out one fundamental question:

Just what constitutes "middle class" anyway?

Is it purely an economic concept, defined by how much people earn or the wealth they hold? Is it occupational? Defined by whether one lives in a single-family dwelling, condo or apartment? By whether that residence is urban, suburban or rural? By race or family structure? Or is it more cultural, defined by tastes and attitudes, than any statistical measure?

We used to have an idea of what middle class looked like, and it was partly economic but also a whole lot of other hardto-quantify characteristics. Generally, middle class meant earning enough to own a home, have some savings and to support family (often on one income), perhaps send kids to college (affordable public schools, of course), with enough left over for some affordable comforts such as vacations.

Being middle class wasn't particularly tied to occupation. Between the postwar economic expansion and union contracts, blue collars moved from working class to middle class, and became as firmly entrenched in the latter as white collars.

Nor was it particularly racial. One of the big economic trend stories of the past half-century was the increasing achievement of middle-class status for African American and immigrant families.

The expectation (more than a hope) was that the upward migration would continue. A lucky few might move up to the status of wealthy. An unlucky few might drop into the category of poor. On the whole, though, the middle class would continue to grow.

That notion is now under attack -- from several directions. In Seattle, for example, the worry is that even with a job that pays what most would consider a comfortable wage, only a privileged few will be able to afford a house in the city, transforming the city into a resort community for well-to-do yuppies and empty nesters. (And if they can afford the pricey condos engulfing the city, do they still qualify as middle class?)

The issue of housing affordability resonates in the discussion of middle class. Property ownership, no matter how modest that property, whatever the owner's job or education level, was considered an integral part of the package, says Jan Whitaker, author of a book (discussed in this space last year) on the American department store's role in shaping middle-class values and attitudes.

An even bigger threat to middle-class status has been economic. Between globalization, downsizing and pay and benefit cuts, many of the jobs through which people could attain and keep middle-class status evaporated. Jobs were created in other categories, but in the non-statistical world of people's experience, education and skills don't neatly translate to new occupations.

That economic reality has had an influence on what might be the most important component of being middle class: aspirations.

Whitaker says middle class was as much as anything else an attitude, a "faith in the future" that you could move up and your kids, with education, might do better still. "I don't think people have that faith."

The erosion of that faith has consequences, she adds, in how people deal with subjects such as education or taxes. "If you don't believe the future is there, you don't believe it's worth it to save money or start a college fund for your children," she says.

If the very concept of "middle class" is amorphous, so, too, will be the diagnosis of what ails it and what, if anything, to do about it. But given the vast array of issues that can be dragged under the overall umbrella of the middle class, from the economy to education to health care to housing affordability, "It's for the middle class" will be employed as political cover for virtually any proposal as much as "It's for the children" has been.

It'll probably work, too. Being middle class was once attacked by the counterculture, but these days it's looking pretty good compared with the alternatives. You won't have to ask many people, even in Seattle, to get plenty of emphatic "yes" answers to the questions: "Are you middle class? Do you want to stay that way?"

IF YOU GO

"Is Puget Sound losing its middle class?" Sunday, 1:30 p.m., Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave. Cost: Free. More information: sharethesuccess.org or call 800-732-1188.