User:BrendelSignature/American professional class

NOTE: This is the rough draft for an article I am currently writing

The American professional class (also refer to as Upper middle class or Managerial class) is a porous social class consisting of highly educated and well compensated professionals with great autonomy in their work. The professional class may constitute 15% to 20% of the population and is mostly distinguished through the high educational attainment of its members, with graduate degrees being the norm. With education as the main entrance barrier, it is "a porous class, open to people… who earn the right credentials" (Gilbert, p. 288). The vast majority of professionals are salaried employees of government agencies and large corporations. Their job tasks are to conceptualize and formulate ideas, manage others and instruct. As a result of considerable work autonomy, work statisfaction tends to be high among professionals. Household incomes often exceed $100,000, depending on the number of earners in a given household, with most salaries being in the high 5-figure range. In addtion to being paid relatively well, professionals may receive generous benefit packages. As a result of their advanced educational credentials, they enjoy high levels of economic security. Tenured professors, for exampole, have especially high levels of job security and work-place autonomy. Attorneys, professors, researchers, scientists, physicians and upper-level manangers are examples of upper middle class occupations.

Values may be largely related to the qualities of professional class occupations. Gender roles are more loosley defined and values in child rearing are more likely to include openeess to new ideas and adherence to internal, rather than external standards. Professional class persons tend to be more direct and confident in their speech. Parents are more likely to sustain longer and more complex conversations with their children. Politically divided, the professional class is very influencial and the origin of many societal trends. It comprises many occupations that affect the forming of public opinion, including writers, journalists, researchers and local politicians. Its members are more likely to take part in the political process and publically express their opinions. Ideoloically, the upper middle class is divided and rather ideosyncratic. A plurality, 41%, of staunch conservatives and liberals reside in mass affluent households, with 47% of the former and 49% of the ladder being college graduates. In 2006, the majority of those with graduate degrees voted Democrat, while a slight majority of all those with six figure household incomes, a slighly larger group, voted Republican. Between 1996 and 2004, on average, a slight majority, 52%, of college educated professionals favored the Democratic canidate. Overall, those in mass affluent households tend to be more left-leaning on social than on fiscal issues.