Dennis Gilbert, in his article "The American Class Structure In An Age of Growing Inequality" said that most people in the United States fit into one of six classes. Members of the capitalist class receive most of their income from wealth and assets rather than work. Members of the upper middle class work in managerial or professional positions requiring a college education, but receive most of their income from work rather than wealth. Members of the middle class work in skilled positions and earn enough money to live comfortably. Members of the working class perform manual labor or clerical work and earn enough money to usually be financially stable. Members of the working poor earn low incomes in unstable, low-skill jobs. Members of the underclass are not able to consistently work and may depend on government assistance.
No single factor can determine a person's social class. Fussell noted that people tend to define class differently depending on what class they belong to. Lower class people usually define class straightforwardly by wealth -- the more money you make, the higher your class status. Middle class people define class by occupation and education level more than by wealth. Upper class people usually define class by a set of behaviors, ideas and personal style. According to the article "Middle Class in America" by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Institute for Research on Poverty, a family that owns a house and car, has health and retirement security and can afford to pay for a college education for its children can be considered middle class.
Race and gender can also complicate a person's class status. A 19-year study of 12,686 people by sociologists Aliya Saperstein at Stanford University and Andrew Penner at the University of California-Irvine found that people tend to perceive a person's race differently based on class status. Interviewers in the survey were asked to describe the participants as being white, black or other on a yearly basis. Participants who had lost a job or moved to an inner-city neighborhood were more likely to be described as black. Those who had gotten married or moved to a suburb were more likely to be perceived as white. Men with low incomes were more likely to be perceived as black than women with low incomes. Some interviewers described the same participant as black one year and white in another year depending on these class markers.
Sociology professor G. William Domhoff, author of "Who Rules America?" described class in terms of political power. According to Domhoff, a small power elite is able to dictate the range and subjects of political debate and policy discussion in the United States through its control of major corporations and nonprofit organizations and its influence over the federal government. Domhoff defines this power elite as the class that receives most of its income from the ownership of land and business interests. This is the same as the capitalist class as defined by Gilbert.