Middle Class
Playing the Middle Class in Hegemony: workers and small companies at once — Build Company, buying from yourself, Extra Shift, selling abroad for points, Prosperity, two kinds of tax and end scoring.
Goal
Your Workers take jobs like the Working Class and earn Wages, but you also
run your own small Companies (up to 8). Your Companies produce goods and services you can sell,
export or keep for your own people. Balance producing, selling and consuming to raise
Prosperity. (3 and 4 players only.)
Your favourite Policies are in section B, the centre; you like low Immigration (7A).
Population and Prosperity
Population track and Population work as for the Working Class (10 Workers, a
Population of 3 at the start). 
Your Prosperity track scores 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,
5, 6, 6, 7, 7 
per step — less per step than the Working Class — and it drops 2 steps
each Preparation Phase (no points lost).
Preparation Phase
- Pay 5 interest per Loan.
- Prosperity −2.
- Draw 5 Action cards.
- Discard any Companies from your Market, refill it to 3.
- New Workers: 1 gray Worker and 1 skilled Worker of your choice (you may wait until the Capitalist Class has revealed its new Companies). Then 7B: 1 Immigration card, 7C: 2; add the Middle Class Worker shown. Draw your own cards, separately from the Working Class.
Your Companies
Two kinds of Middle Class Company:
- run by one Middle Class Worker, with an optional slot for a Working Class employee (with a Wage and an Employee Production Bonus); or
- run by two Middle Class Workers, no employee.
Companies with only your Workers produce without Wages. For a Working Class employee you pay their Wage and gain the bonus. A Company is fully operational with 2 Workers in it — both yours, or yours plus an employee.
Basic Actions
Propose Bill
See Bills and Elections.
Assign Workers
As for the Working Class: up to 3 of your Workers, including Workers running your own Companies (the Company then stops, and its employee becomes unemployed). You may not pull your Worker out of a Company whose employee is committed.
Build Company
Pick a Company from your Market for which you have the Middle Class Workers it needs — unemployed, or uncommitted Workers working elsewhere. Pay its cost, place it in your part of the Private Sector and put your Workers in, committed. If it has an employee slot, set its Wage (at least the Labor Market minimum); you may then commit an unemployed Working Class Worker there (unskilled first if the slot is gray). No cards left in the Market, or 8 Companies already: you cannot build.
Sell Company
Discard one of your Companies with no committed Workers; its Workers become unemployed; gain its cost.
Sell to the Foreign Market
Do any transactions on the Export card, each once (how),
from your Storages only — not from Goods & Services. Gain 1 per transaction.
Buy Goods and Services
As for the Working Class — one resource, up to 2 sources, up to your Population from each — but one source can be yourself: to use what your own Companies made you must “buy” it, moving it free from your Storage to Goods & Services. Buying from yourself still counts as one of the 2 sources.
Extra Shift
Choose one of your Companies with uncommitted Middle Class Workers; commit everyone there and produce at once. With an uncommitted employee you must pay their Wage (and gain the bonus) — if you cannot pay, you cannot choose that Company. If the employee is already committed, they do not help: no Wage, no bonus.
Apply Political Pressure
Add 3 of your Voting cubes to the bag.
Free Actions
- Use Healthcare / Use Education / Use Luxury — as for the Working Class, spending your Population from Goods & Services. Use Education may retrain only an unemployed skilled Worker.
- Adjust Prices, Adjust Wages — see below.
- Swap Workers, Receive Benefits (4 players), Pay Off Loan (50 ).
Adjust Prices and Wages
Adjust Prices: move the price markers under your Storages — the price other classes pay you. Adjust Wages: move a Company’s Wage marker; raising it commits the employee; you may not lower the Wage of a committed employee or go below the minimum.
Production Phase
You are paid for your Workers in other Companies first, so you can use that money for your own
employees’ Wages. Then your Companies produce into your Storages (8 of each at most; extra is lost);
Influence goes straight to Goods & Services, without limit. Committed Workers stand
up.
Cover Needs: Food equal to your Population, from your Storage or Goods & Services first, the rest bought.
Taxes
- Income Tax: the table amount (same table as the Working Class) × the number of other classes’ Companies where you have Workers.
- Employment Tax: your operational Companies × the Tax Multiplier (an empty employee slot does not stop a Company being operational).
Scoring Phase
If your Prosperity is lower than your number of fully operational Companies, gain 1 Prosperity for free (and score it).
Game End
- Centre Policies (1–5 in section B): 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 of them score 1 / 3 / 6 / 10 / 15 .
- 1 per 2
/ 3 
/ 3 
/ 3 
in your
Storages (not Goods & Services). - 1 per 15 left.
- Unpaid Loans cost points.