Discussion is taking place in the media about the widening social gap between the very rich and the rest of US. It is interesting to understand how the sensitive subject of social class in a country supposedly egalitarian in its values was handled at the beginning of the Baby Boom in the 1950s. The video claims that the US has more "vertical mobility" than other nations, but it also candidly admits that important class boundaries exist. Achieved status does not always trump ascribed status. The video reinforces the reality, perhaps unintentionally, that we never one great middle class:
A more recent look at class consciousness in New York's Hamptons: