Socioeconomic status

Introduction

This section covers the topic of socioeconomic status for science communication, journalism, and inclusive writing. Subtopics include structural and systemic causes for income disparities, mentions of the intersection between race, immigration status, and socioeconomic status, and the assumptions often made because of those overlaps. Anchored in our core values, ACS sees acknowledgement of these overlaps as one way of demonstrating and fostering inclusive and accurate communication between and for all people. We acknowledge that not all individuals or institutions share the same viewpoint, and that some professional and government settings may have specific language requirements regarding how socioeconomic status is defined or referenced. 

This guide does not prescribe legal or institutional policy – it is designed to offer inclusive options to inform communication choices. Users should consult their organization’s policies when preparing materials for official contexts.

A person’s socioeconomic status can influence their access to education, scientific opportunities, health outcomes, and participation in the chemical sciences. Using neutral and inclusive language about socioeconomic status is essential because it promotes accuracy, fairness, and respect in scientific communication, creating an inclusive environment that can help broaden the participation of people from all socioeconomic backgrounds in the STEM fields.  

Neutral language for socioeconomic status

Background:

Words like “impoverished,” “poor,” or “struggling” imply judgment and can unintentionally reduce people solely to their financial status. Such words fail to recognize the structural factors that influence opportunity. In contrast, “asset framing” leads with someone’s strengths and aspirations instead of their deficits. The intent isn’t to ignore or downplay problems as real as financial insecurity but to use a person’s positive characteristics—rather than their challenges—as a way of introducing them. For example, instead of calling someone a high school dropout, you could say “someone with a ninth-grade education.”

Inclusive options:

• Avoid language that focuses on what someone lacks. 
• Use explicit language that looks at root causes and describes the barriers that impede those seeking opportunity. 
• When comparing socioeconomic status groups, use parallel phrasing or asset framing.
• When deficits need to be named, use neutral language instead of pejorative or stigmatizing words.
• Aim to accurately portray people of various socioeconomic status groups; avoid communication that ignores socioeconomic problems, romanticizes poverty, or portrays lower socioeconomic status groups as heroes. 
• Do not equate poverty to a curse or disease, as with “poverty-stricken” or “poverty ridden.” 
• See also “Neutral language for disabilities, disorders, and diseases” and “Factors that affect socioeconomic status.”

Example:

Factors that affect socioeconomic status

Background:

Social class is a stratified social hierarchy based on wealth, income, education, occupation, and social network. An individual’s social class can have profound consequences on their opportunities, successes, and outcomes in life. Language that ignores the influence of social class, or implies that individual’s effort solely determines their success, overlooks important realities that affect people’s lives. For example, attributing health disparities to “lifestyle choices” fails to account for factors such as time, income, access to education, and neighborhood resources that can impact an individual’s choices. For example, not getting the recommended daily amount of fruits and vegetables may reflect limited access to stores that sell fresh produce rather than a personal preference. 

Terminology matters. The term “food desert” portrays access to food as a naturally occurring situation, whereas terms such as “food apartheid” emphasize the history of redlining and segregation that contributed to unequal food access in US society. 

Inclusive options:

• Avoid characterizing an individual’s socioeconomic status or economic mobility as the result of individual behaviors. 
• Provide context and use language that accurately reflects the challenges and opportunities faced by different socioeconomic status groups. 
• Avoid assigning morality to socioeconomic status.
• See also “Neutral language for socioeconomic status.”

Example:

Show variety within all socioeconomic status groups

Background:

People within a particular socioeconomic status group may have markedly different experiences, behaviors, and aspirations depending on their geographic location, race, immigration status, age, gender, family structure, and many other factors. It’s inaccurate to imply that everyone in a socioeconomic group shares the same characteristics, values, or behaviors. Be mindful of ways that race and ethnicity might be errantly conflated with socioeconomic status. 

Inclusive options:

• Avoid language that treats socioeconomic status groups as homogeneous or that treats higher socioeconomic status groups as the norm.
• Be specific about who is included in socioeconomic status groups, when possible.
• At any socioeconomic status level, avoid conflating it with race and ethnicity.
• See also “Words that assume cultural and geographic norms.”  

Example:

How to refer to community types

Background:

In the US, formal categorization of community type (urban, suburban, and rural) is largely based on proximity to a metropolitan area as well as metropolitan population size and population density – measures calculated and utilized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service and the National Center for Health Statistics of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These categorizations generally align with how people self-describe, although not perfectly. 

Oftentimes, people use shorthand terms and euphemisms for rural and urban areas, oftentimes laced with language that presumes race and ethnicity. For example, phrases like “inner city” and “ghetto” have historically been used to describe majority-Black or/and majority immigrant neighborhoods, and continue to be used as coded ways of referring to those communities, especially Black communities. However, such terms overlook systemic issues while making broad assumptions of who lives in urban versus rural areas.

Inclusive options:

• When referring to urban, suburban, or rural communities, be specific by including the measures used to determine that category.
• Avoid phrases such as “ghetto,” and “inner city,” or “flyover states.”

Example:

How to refer to occupation

Background:

Calling jobs or people “unskilled” or “low skill” is imprecise, demeaning, and inaccurate, as these jobs are valuable and require many skills. These terms are often “lumping together entry-level jobs, jobs that do not require much education or a formal credential, jobs that do not require experienced workers, jobs without much opportunity for advancement, menial jobs, and—most of all—low-wage jobs,” Annie Lowrey says in a 2021 Atlantic article. Labeling the jobs and workers also seems to blame the people—who, at least in the US, are disproportionately immigrants—rather than the systems that created inequalities between types of jobs and the people who typically do those jobs. Furthermore, framing “low skill” jobs as only temporary waystations to something greater devalues those positions. “These so-called ‘unskilled’ jobs aren’t just stepping stones to something ‘greater’ or more ‘valuable.’ They aren’t merely summer jobs for teenagers and college students. These roles have immense value in and of themselves,” Haley Johnson says in 2022 Michigan Daily article.

Another way people describe jobs is using the terms “white collar” and “blue collar.” That terminology is vague, oversimplified, and outdated. Specific descriptions are clearer.

Inclusive options:

• Provide context and specific details when discussing jobs. 
• Avoid representing some types of employment as being inherently better than others
• Avoid describing jobs or workers as “unskilled” or “low skill.” 
• Use specific descriptions instead of “blue collar” and “white collar.”

Examples:

How to refer to housing status

Background:

People may experience chronic, transitional, or episodic homelessness, which can include living outdoors or in inadequate dwellings. Lower socioeconomic status groups and people living in poverty are at a higher risk of becoming homeless. The term “homeless” has different meanings to different people. “Being homeless doesn’t necessarily mean someone is sleeping on the street or in a car. It can mean sleeping on a friend’s sofa due to the lack of an alternative. Many college students don’t realize this and, therefore, don’t consider themselves homeless,” Denise-Marie Ordway says in a 2019 article in the Journalist’s Resource.

Some organizations, such as the American Psychological Association, recommend person-first language, such as “people experiencing homelessness,” instead of “homeless people.” The term “unhoused,” started in the West Coast of the US, has become more popular nationwide. Using the verb form partly signals that becoming homeless is the result of events and not inherent to a person. Others use “houseless” because “homeless” has become linked to negative stereotypes about people who do not have permanent housing.

Inclusive options:

• In general, ask people how they want to be described, including specifics to their housing situation.
• Do not use the label “the homeless.” Alternatives include “unhoused” or “houseless.” 
• If you cannot determine preference and need to group people, use people-first language, such as “people experiencing homelessness” or another person-first alternative instead of “homeless people.”
• See also “Using lables for characteristics” and “Self-descriptions."
  

Example:

How to describe countries in relation to wealth

Background:

Description of countries and their respective economies frequently overlap with the topic of socioeconomics. The terms “developing/developed” and “first/third world” are considered to be outdated, imprecise, and demeaning. “Developing” suggests that development is a linear process in which “developed” countries have reached full civilization. It assumes that “developing” countries’ success hinges on mirroring “developed” countries’ strategies and ideologies, and it ignores variation between and within countries categorized as “developed” or “developing.” In 2016, the World Bank stopped differentiating between “developed” and “developing” countries in its World Development Indicators.

“Global South” and “Global North” have emerged as more recent alternatives in scholarly communication. “Global South” usually refers to Latin America, Africa, Oceania, and lower-income countries in Asia. But these terms have also drawn criticism for their ambiguity and can obscure important differences within countries. Other groupings of regions, like “majority world” and “minority world,” are less well known. 

The Global Press Style Guide says of the terms “developing world/emerging economy/Global South/third world”: “The terms are geographically imprecise, do not have widely accepted definitions and are generally used as sanitized synonyms for poverty. Using generalized terms to imply poverty across large land areas and countries that have little else in common reflects bias and defines complex communities by foreign standards of wealth.”

Inclusive options:

• Avoid using broad, vague terms that signal entire parts of the globe as “other,” such as "developed" and "developing” nations and "first world" and "third world" countries. 
• When discussing groups of countries, identify them by name or specific geographic regions. If the groups are not based on location, specifically define the issues you are exploring, and use classifications based on actual data. For example, the World Bank classifies countries by gross national income per capita and reassesses the classifications each year. But note that generalizing across an entire country can inaccurately portray a country as homogeneous.

Examples:

Resources on inclusive language for socioeconomic status

• American Psychological Association; “Socioeconomic Status.” APA Style Guide. (accessed January 12, 2026). 
• Brookings Institute; “Beyond ‘food deserts’: American needs a new approach to mapping food insecurity.” (accessed January 12, 2026).
• European Science Editing; “Rethinking the Use of the Term 'Global South' in Academic Publishing.” (accessed January 12, 2026). 
• NPR; “Memo to People of Earth: 'Third World' Is an Offensive Term!” (accessed January 12, 2026).
• Plan International; “Did You Know: Saying ‘Developing Countries’ Is More Controversial Than You Think.” (accessed January 12, 2026).
• Prospect; “Is It Time to Retire the Term ‘Developing Country’?” (accessed January 12, 2026).
• Spur; “Tackling Poverty Stigma to Build Better Conversations.” (accessed January 12, 2026).
• The Journalist’s Resource; “Covering Poverty: What to Avoid and How to Get It Right.” (accessed January 12, 2026).
• World Bank Blogs: "Time to stop referring to the 'developing world'." (accessed January 12, 2026).