Poll: More people describe selves as lower class

About a third of people in the U.S. now say they are lower class, up from around 25 percent four years ago, a new survey has found.

The Pew Research Center reported that those under 30 are disproportionately likely to term themselves lower class.

Whites and Latinos are also more likely now to place themselves in the lower class, but the percentage of blacks saying that has remained roughly steady over the last four years. 

As of right now, whites (31 percent) and blacks (33 percent) are about just as likely to describe themselves as lower class. 

The findings come as the U.S. continues to slog through a sluggish economic recovery, following the 2008 fiscal crisis, and as the state of the economy remains a key campaign issue.

The economy created a disappointing 96,000 jobs last month, and the GOP nominee for president, Mitt Romney, has dubbed President Obama’s economic policies a failure.

But the president has said the economy has made progress, even if it’s recovered more slowly than most would have liked. 

The Pew poll also found that Republicans and conservatives were more likely to find themselves in the lower class now than four years ago. Those who placed themselves below the middle class were also less satisfied, and more pessimistic about their future. 

Pew’s latest findings, which come from a survey of 2,508 adults, follow recent releases in which the research center found, among other things, that the middle-class had taken a step back over the last decade.