Opportunity Costs: Money and Class in America

Death, Sex & Money

• Episode: Opportunity Costs: Money and Class in America
• Website: Death, Sex & Money
• Feed URL: http://feeds.wnyc.org/deathsexmoney
• Published: 2018-01-17 10:00

In partnership with 

Death, Sex & Money is partnering with BuzzFeed News to share conversations and essays about class and money—and the ways they manifest in our day to day lives and in our relationships with each other.

Read BuzzFeed's reported pieces and essays about money and class—including one from Anna!—here.  

Episode 5: I Never Felt Inferior 

Ernie Major self-identifies as "socially lower middle class, economically a bit better than that." But he also says status has never been something he paid much attention to. 

Episode 4: More is Not More 

For a father and son whose family is in the 1%, having resources that "exceed their wants" brings its own set of challenges.  

Episode 3: The Class Slide After Divorce 

Jaimie Seaton got used to an upper class lifestyle while married to her banker husband and living overseas. Then she got divorced, and her financial picture totally changed.

Read Jaimie's BuzzFeed piece about class changes after divorce here.  

Episode 2: An Education, or Nothing

Ramal Johnson has a "middle class mentality," a working class paycheck, and upper class aspirations. 

Looking for the Pew Research Center class calculator? Find it here. 

 Episode 1: Friendship and Fertility 

Best friends Cat and Christine met in college and have stayed close since. But their class differences became very clear—and uncomfortable—when they both struggled to get pregnant.

For several months, we've been asking for your stories about when you've felt your class status the most. Now, we're sharing five conversations about class and the ways it intersects with different parts of our lives. Two best friends talk about how being on the opposite ends of the middle class have impacted their ability to start families. A first-generation college student deep in debt bemoans how hard it is to climb up the class ladder—and how easy it is to fall down it. A mother of two teenagers talks about how her life looks different after her financial situation changed post-divorce. A son talks with his father about how their family became part of the 1%—and why it's not all it's cracked up to be. And a 73-year-old Vietnam vet who never got comfortable in the professional world reflects on how being white allowed him a level of fluidity in class status not afforded some of his non-white colleagues and friends.

"Class is complicated. So, so complicated," a listener named Jessica wrote to us when we asked for your stories about class.

While it pops up in many ways in our lives, class is a term that can be hard to pin down, and isn't just about money. "My class is defined by my home and my education," one listener wrote. "Class is your ability to rebound from inevitable setbacks," another said. "Class does not define our worth or ability as humans," wrote another listener. And a listener from the UK wrote about class, "We embrace it as who we are, not what we want to become."

One of our favorite class definitions came from Elizabeth in El Paso, Texas, who wrote, "I feel like class is a level of pride or shame." So we want to hear from you: what embarrasses you about your current class status, and what makes you feel pride? To read through what your fellow listeners have told us already, click here. 

Plus, we ask you to tell us a song that sums up where you fit, class-wise. Check out the Spotify playlist we built from your suggestions here. 

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