Middle Class

Working Class Hero

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Liz Wolfe | 7.20.2026 9:30 AM

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(Derek French/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom)

I guess we're all working-class now: "I think if you have to work to pay your bills, I think that that is one definition of being a part of the working class," New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani told The New York Times in an interview published over the weekend.

"So someone making $250,000 a year is working class?" reporter Lulu Garcia-Navarro pushed back. "I haven't asked myself where it starts and stops," answered Mamdani. "What I would say is those who are working to try and afford the basic dignities of life and aren't able to do so, I think that that is also working class. Oftentimes we're asked how we divide this country. I think there's only one majority in this country—it's the working class."

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I guess the upshot is that Mamdani himself—someone born to extremely wealthy parents—isn't actually working-class, as he and his wife appear to have vast reserves of family........

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