Listen to any presidential campaign speech over the last half-century. Everything the candidate is proposing will benefit “the middle class” or “the working class” or will pump up “small business.” And won’t voters please consider that children are our future?

There’s no universally agreed-upon definition of lower, working, middle, upper-middle or upper class. And that suits politicians just fine: They want as many voters as possible to think the policies they’re promoting will benefit them.

In 2026 America, that means promising the world to the “working class,” if a new poll from the nonpartisan Pew Research Center is any guide.