I feel like whenever someone does this, pretending to speak sympathetically for the lower classes, it comes off as contempt more than anything else. Americans used to work and read. People with full time jobs still read. There was once a time when reading was just a normal thing that normal people did, not a specialized skill and activity and trying to frame it that way is a disservice. People spend the free time they have scrolling and watching passive TV, saying that they should try reading instead isn’t some sin against the working class, reading is both entertaining and active. That’s more respectful to people’s time and brain than saying that because they work 40 hours a week (like literally everyone else) that they should spend that time on short form videos or watching slop from companies that don’t care about their time or brains beyond making them buy shit.

If you keep framing reading as some niche specialized thing that you have to be in special disciplines to do, you’re only going to push it further into nonexistence. You should keep encouraging regular people to read, classics or otherwise, because it’s a rewarding activity for everyone. Same as pushing people to be active instead of saying playing sports is only for athletes. Because people should be using their brains and their body. Because people used to read all the time.