Our use of working, benefit and criminal class (WBC-C) is in recognition of the different ways in which some people choose to identify their socioeconomic background, because recognising the inequity between different lower class backgrounds is important to us. Our use of this term came from a town hall meeting held by Class and Coronavirus in early 2020 in which a group of artists from low socioeconomic backgrounds discussed their varying lived experiences of class. 

We want to note that our use of the term ‘benefit class’ is in recognition of a class background in which no parent or carer was able to access work - it is not interchangeable with ‘people in receipt of benefits’, as there are many circumstances in which a person may access certain benefits and also be working-class or middle-class. 

Our use of the term ‘criminal class’ is in recognition of a class background in which the parent / carer / household income may not have been gained through lawful means, in acknowledgment of the different experience of economic background this can bring. The term is not interchangeable with ‘people who have experience of the criminal justice system’ - we would never advocate for labelling a person who has experience of the CJS as ‘criminal class’ based on this experience alone, as this could be marginalising and damaging. You can also of course be from any class background and have experienced the CJS. 

Our conversations around class are about the socioeconomic circumstances in which a person grew up, and about how they impacted their life chances both then and now. They are conversations led by WBC-C artists and artists from low socioeconomic backgrounds, they are live, fluctuating, conversations and are not definitive. 

We are not asking the creative industries to adopt this language if it does not want to. Classroom is a space to talk about class but we cannot represent anyone other than ourselves. If you do not want to use this language then you could use ‘low socioeconomic background’ as we also do across our projects and programs.