The next social stratum, the industrial working class, has been the object of much glorification by the regime and has benefited most by the social measures passed since 1944. In terms of their standard of living and their social status, workers occupy the lowest level of urban society; however, the educational benefits available to them and the growing job market offer prospects for betterment and advancement. The group has grown more rapidly than any other social class as a result of the crash industrialization program and constitute between 40 and 50 percent of the population, as compared to about 29 percent in the mid-1950s. Most members of the working class are peasants who have left the village to find a better life in the growing cities and towns. Some workers are members of the former middle or upper classes who have been demoted by the new social order. Many members of the small prewar working class were propelled upward out of the working class into managerial and administrative positions of industry. Within the working class differentiation is made according to education and skill, which is reflected in income and prestige. Skilled workers are still in relatively short supply; therefore, they command considerably higher wages and are likely to receive special housing and other privileges and inducements from employers. The higher standard of living that these material advantages can provide and the higher level of education required to be skilled workers enhance their prestige in relation to the semiskilled and unskilled workers. Workers in certain industries, such as mining and heavy industry, are favored regardless of their level of skill. They benefit from the special status assigned to these industries in the overall economic plan. The middle level of contemporary society encompasses all persons in nonmanual occupations who are not members of the ruling elite. It includes administrators, managers, professionals, technicians, and all categories of white-collar personnel. Next to the working class, this has been the fastest growing social group. As a result, most of its members are relatively young, and their social origins represent the entire spectrum of precommunist society. Within the middle class further differentiation is made in terms of income and prestige between persons in the upper levels of management and the professions, who have a higher education and those in the lower levels of technical and white-collar employment, who have only a secondary education. The group as a whole probably constitutes almost 20 percent of the population. The relative size of the upper and lower levels was not known, although the lower level was probably larger.