ABSTRACT
Yuppie is an acronym for `Young, Upwardly-mobile, Professional', although some would give the `u' as standing for `Urban'. It was the first of a series of acronyms coined by American journalists to describe the social groups that emerged, or became prominent as electoral target groups, during the 1980s. Others include `Dinks' (`Dual Income, No Kids') and variations on the idea of comfortably-off middle-aged people whose children are no longer financial burdens. What all these groups have in common is that they were ideal electoral audiences for policies aimed at reducing both taxes and social expenditure , as such groups had no direct personal need for state-provided education, health services, public transport and so on (see welfarism). It was precisely these groups that US President Ronald Reagan's first federal budgets, in 1981 and 1982, were aimed at, and the strategy was extremely successful. The brash arrogance of the Yuppies and the self-satisfied attitudes of the other acronymic groups soon began to appal Americans, however, particularly when some were revealed to have participated in illegal trading in the stock-markets and other abuses of their, already very extensive, freedoms. It was not a purely American phenomenon, of course. Many other Western societies experienced the politics of Yuppiedom, though no other country gave the favoured groups the respectability that they briefly enjoyed in the USA. In the United Kingdom, for example, similar tax and economic policies were targeted successfully at particular voter groups by the Conservative Party, not only the City of London-based Yuppies, but also their down-market cousin, `Essex Man'. Although Essex Man and, eventually, Yuppie were recognized as terms of scorn, this has not stopped those who might be so described from enjoying their prosperity, nor prevented governments from reaping the electoral benefits of having encouraged these groups. The phrase was seldom heard by the early 21st century, but it played so large a part in characterizing the politics of the last two decades of the 20th that historians will long have recourse to it. The word was the most obvious symbol of a shift towards egocentric politics arising from the removal of much of the socio-economic security Western societies had built for themselves after 1945.
