Us and They :: Rich people ... bad people ... mad people ..... Middle Class people :::: A cousin watches the kids, and the favour to be returned

The middle class values degrees, titles, and hard work, and it accepts trading time for a salary as the normal deal. 

Working-class jobs are often physical or hourly. 

Pay stops when the clock does and hence the reverse - the clock stops when pay stops also work.  

Rich people build relationships around access. Board seats, deal flow, and shared investments hold these circles together.

Middle-class networks form at the office, in professional associations, and through neighbors and alumni groups. 

Working-class networks are smaller and far more hands-on. 

A cousin watches the kids, a buddy helps fix the car, and the favor is repaid later.   

For elite families, school is about who you meet and how you learn to lead. Alumni connections and financial literacy count as much as the diploma.  

The middle class treats degrees as the ticket to steady employment and raises. Working-class families view education with greater suspicion. 

A trade can pay off quickly, while a four-year degree with heavy loans might never recoup its cost.

Upper-class portfolios lean on private equity, real estate and stocks, with tax planning built into every move. 

Keeping capital matters as much as growing it.

Middle-class savers rely on index funds while chipping away at the mortgage and guarding their credit scores. Working-class money management comes down to cash flow. 

Over time, side gigs and short-term credit fill the gaps between paychecks.  The middle class solves problems through personal effort and by working within the rules of banks, schools, and HR departments. Working-class people fix things themselves. If they don’t have the skill, a neighbor or relative usually has it.

None of these mindsets is locked in place. 

Plenty of people raised in working-class homes have built serious wealth, and plenty of rich families have lost theirs in a generation or two.

Start by noticing which habits came from your upbringing and asking whether they still make sense. Borrowing the upper class’s long-term horizon costs nothing, and a working-class eye for durability keeps spending in check while your assets grow.

Money habits get passed down at the kitchen table long before anyone opens a brokerage account. Kids absorb how their parents talk about bills, jobs, and risk, and those lessons tend to stick for life.  

There is also a widening gap in how hikes are distributed among employees. Almost 37% of companies are looking at giving salary hikes of 10% or more, compared with 12% last year. Around 38% of companies plan to give hikes in the average range of 8-10%, as compared to a staggering 72% last year. 

The sectors offering the highest salary increases are non-banking financial companies at 10.1%, followed by energy at 9.9%, and real estate and infrastructure at 9.8%. 

These findings are part of Aon’s Annual Salary Increase and Turnover Survey for India 2026-27, which analysed data from more than 1,200 organisations across 45 industries.

Also, one in four companies, including those in IT and ITES (IT-enabled services), will give salary hikes of less than 8% to their employees. 

This share has increased from 16% to 25% this year. 

Moreover, salaries may decline in real terms, as inflation is projected to be higher in 2027, at around 5.1%, compared to 4.3% in 2026. 

“The divergence has gone up as new sectors like data centres, semiconductors and quick commerce are looking at giving higher increments,” says Amit Kumar Otwani, Associate Partner, Talent Solutions, India, Aon.

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