From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishworking classˌworking ˈclass ●●○ noun [singular] (also working classes [plural]) SSCLASS IN SOCIETYthe group of people in society who traditionally do physical work and do not have much money or power Marx wrote about the political struggles of the working class. —working-class adjective working-class women the traditional working-class occupations He is proud of his working-class background. → lower class, middle class, upper classGRAMMAR: Singular or plural verb?• The working class is usually followed by a singular verb: The working class has suffered a lot.• In British English, you can also use a plural verb: The working class have suffered a lot.
Examples from the Corpus
working class• Working class, a socialist through thick and thin, and us.• Firstly the increasing use of machinery will result in a homogeneous working class.• This in itself would hardly have been significant had it not been for a wider transformation of the adult male working class.• Humphrey calls the differentiation of the working class thesis technologically determinist because he says it attaches too much importance to technology.• It would be wrong to see this development as involving the replacement of the working class by the new urban left.• On the one hand, they did not want working class hooligans swarming all over the country causing mayhem.• The black population, thus, effectively constitutes an underclass, placed in a structurally different location from the white working class. 