Eli5: why do people use the term Middle class instead of Working class?

Question

Isn’t middle simply confusing?

Are we not working folks and wealthy-ruling folks that generate wealth via assets?

Edit: thank you all who’ve helped me gain a better understand of the concept from many different angles

In: 0

Answer 1

People tend to use “upper class” and the opposite of upper is “lower”. One simply doesn’t say “upper class vs the poor” cause you always try to say within the same vocabulary family. Since people use upper and lower class, that leaves the one in between, which would be middle class.

Again, it would be confusing if you say “the upper class doesn’t work, the ones that do all the grunt work is the lower class and the working class”. It makes it arbitrary and confusing. Whereas if you replace working with middle, everyone gets the picture of upper, middle, and lower class.