Maps Show ‘Class Divide’ in Plymouth, Greater Boston

Plymouth is a town that celebrates its past as a working-class town, so it’s no shocker then that Census tracts indicate the service and working classes have a stronghold here.

The “service class” has the highest share in Plymouth, followed by the “creative class” and finally a small “working class” share, according to a report by The Atlantic Cities, which uses a map to show how class lines divide within and among Census tracts.

Service reigns in Plymouth, and several of the Old Colony towns including Carver, Wareham, and Middleborough, but in other South Shore towns, such as Duxbury and Kingston, the creative class dominates, according to the Atlantic Cities report, which uses data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. 

The service class, which includes food service, retail, clerical and administrative positions, makes up 43.4 percent of the region's work force, slightly less than the national average of 46.6 percent. In Plymouth, 45.9 percent of the workforce works in service positions.

Service workers in the metro average $33,738 in wages and salaries, better than the national average of $30,597 but just 40 percent of the average creative class salary in the region.

The creative class, which includes professionals working in the science and technology, business, arts, media, law and healthcare industries—makes up about more than 41 percent of the metro area’s workforce, and 36.6 percent of the workforce in Plymouth.

While the working class make up less than 15 percent of the regional workforce, it's 17.3 percent of Plymouth workers, according to the Atlantic Cities report. Members of the working class are employed in factory jobs as well as transportation, maintenance, transportation, and construction.

According to the report, members of Metro Boston’s creative class earn an average of $84,403, the working class an average of $42,765 in wages, and the service class an average of $33,738. All three of those are better than the national averages.

The Atlantic Cities report draws Plymouth into 12 Census tracts. For simplicity's sake we'll call them North Plymouth, Downtown, West Plymouth, Chiltonville, Buttermilk Bay, Cedarville, Manomet A and Manomet B, West Plymouth A and West Plymouth B, South Plymouth, and Ellisville.

Now, you tell us:

What do you think about these so-called "class divides?" A commenter who posted on a simliar article published by Somerville Patch posited that the "creative class" is the new working class. Do you agree?

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