This is Rumbel Strip. I'm Erica Heilman and this is the ninth episode of what class are you?

I met Ethan Perry while he was taking a break from his job at Family Dollar in Orleans, Vermont.

At the time he was 29, when I asked him what class he is, he said he grew up lower

middle class. His mother was a teacher and his father a carpenter. He said that

now he considers himself lower class but not impoverished.

He's worked as an after-school counselor and a gas station attendant.

He's worked at Planet Fitness, McDonald's, Cumberland Farms, Walmart, and Hanifords twice.

He's worked at a phone call center and he's been a cell phone salesman, and when I met him

on the sidewalk, he'd been working at Family Dollar for about four months.

We talked for a few minutes, and then I drove back up to Orleans,

and we sat in my car up on the hill that overlooks the Ethan Allen

Furniture Mill, and we talked.

Is there any inherent value or virtue in upward mobility?

Everybody likes a story about somebody who's striving for more, but is that inherently valuable?

Yeah, I would say it's invaluable even, you know.

If you're working at one of the many jobs I've had,

like, you don't want to, you know, you don't want to look at the past because that was

mopping floors you don't want to look at the present because that's washing toilets

but the future that's you know that could be anything. You know what you want to have a picture of what you want you know what you want to have a picture of what you want you know what you

what's your picture I'm not looking at anything crazy I'd like to own a

small business or something someday that'd be cool. I'd probably do a pizza shop

but yeah that's what I have my idea for maybe someday right now. When you have to worry about money, is it hard to think about

...