David Rovics - Welcome to the Working Class lyrics

rate me

The average annual income of the richest one percent

Is about seven hundred grand

The average annual income of the poorest one percent

Is a couple Food Stamps and a pile of sand

Smack-dab in the middle, 350 thousand, but that's actually the top four percent

Most everybody else, say, in the bottom eighty

Is struggling to pay their mortgage or their rent

You who say you're in the middle, I wonder what you mean?

In the middle of what and what?

I say you're probably full of something that hopefully will soon be coming out of your butt

I could join you in your fantasy, but I think I'll have to pass

And just say welcome to the working class

(Verse 2)

If you're wondering how you might send your kids to college

If your savings is smaller than your debt

If your main mode of transport is an auto or a pickup

And not a helicopter or a private jet

If you drive yourself to the supermarket

You know where to find the milk upon the shelf

If you bring the groceries home and then you cook the food all by yourself

If your idea of a night out is ordering a pizza and watching a DVD

If your idea of social mobility is the fact that

You have broadband and a high-definition TV

You can try to convince me that you're in the bourgeoisie

Or you could just stop smoking that grass

Welcome to the working class

Welcome, welcome to the working class

(Verse 3)

If half your income's spent on taxes, no second home on a tropic isle

If flying in economy and renting a car is your notion of vacationing in style

If you've never seen the world's Seven Wonders

And you think you probably never will

Because you only get two weeks holiday each year

And you just don't have the time to kill

If you think because you're employed and have a roof over your heads

That you're so very privileged because your kids sleep in separate beds

But you can't afford the rest home for your parents

And it's you whose gotta wipe their asses

Well then welcome to the working class