How does working class experience illuminate our understanding of debates about affluence and class?

You need to start with text which reports working class experience, and show how the 'thinking' of the contributors has been conditioned by their birth circumstances, and how such conditioning has reified (made real) the class system. (Try googling 'novels about class' for sources). You would ideally need to take into account historical shifts in aspirations affected by changes in religiosity, education and communications technology over the last two centuries, which have eroded acceptance of a 'class system' based on birth and replaced in with affluence . You might also refer to the influence of Marx on the concept 'class struggle' and how it is related to 'ownership'.and wealth both inherited and acquired.

A now standard work on lower class life is The Classic Slum: Salford Life in the First Quarter of the Century (this link to Amazon is for information purposes only and does not constitute a recommendation of their products or services). On that page, click on the link for customer reviews. The century referred to is the 20th century.

For a view of a much earlier society in England, i recommend The World Turned Upside Down by Christopher Hill, one of England's earliest social historians. You can read a review of this book by clicking here. The civil wars were a time of not just military and political turmoil, but also of religious and social upheaval. I highly recommend this book, which is short and yet highly informative.

Finally, i recommend A Fool and His Money: Life in a Partitioned Town in Fourteenth-Century France, by Ann Wroe. Once again, without recommending the products or services of Amazon, you can read their page on this book.. Read the customer reviews (with caution). Rodez in Languedoc (southern France) was divided between the cité, the home of the English and ecclesiastic authorities; and the bourg, the commercial district, whose inhabitants had little reason to love the English or the French kings.

In my never humble opinion, working backward through history will clarify not just class and economic differences, but their development over time.