Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters tend to be more working class and have lower incomes than the supporters of other candidates for the Labour leadership, according to new research.

Polling conducted by YouGov found that across a series of indicators the frontrunner’s support came from lower income groups, while his opponents and critics tended to be richer and more upper middle class.

Only 26 per cent of Mr Corbyn’s supporters have a household income over £40k a year, compared to 44 per cent for the Blairite candidate Liz Kendall.

The moderate candidates Andy Burnham and Yvette Coopers’ supporters have household incomes over £40k in 29 per cent and 32 per cent of cases respectively, putting them between the two extremes.

Mr Corbyn’s supporters also tended to have working class and lower middle class occupations compared to the stronger upper middle class support for some other candidates.

65 per cent of Ms Kendall’s supporters were in the upper middle class group, compared to just 48 per cent for Ms Cooper’s, 40 per cent for Mr Burnham’s, and only 36 per cent for Mr Corbyn’s.

In both cases Mr Corbyn's supporters were closer to the average demographic for voters in Great Britain than the other candidates - though this did not necessarily translate into a similarity of political views.

The findings contrast with a narrative extoled by some centrist Labour politicians that the left-wing of the party was somehow out-of-touch or privileged.

Last year, Alan Johnson, who has branded Mr Corbyn’s success as “madness”, claimed that the party’s left-wing tended to be from more privileged backgrounds than its professionalised moderates.

Labour leadership: The Contenders Show all 4 1 /4 Labour leadership: The Contenders Labour leadership: The Contenders Jeremy Corbyn Jeremy Corbyn started off as the rank outsider in the race to replace Ed Miliband and admitted he was only standing to ensure the left of the party was given a voice in the contest. But the Islington North MP, who first entered Parliament in 1983, is now the firm favourite to be elected Labour leader on September 12 after a surge in left-wing supporters signing up for a vote. PA Labour leadership: The Contenders Liz Kendall Liz Kendall has been labelled the Blairite candidate throughout the contest, which partly explains why she has failed to attract the support needed in a party that has drifted even further from the centre-ground of British politics since the election. She has faced criticism over her relative lack of experience, having only served as an MP since 2010 and having no experience of ministerial or shadow cabinet roles. But that very lack of experience allowed her to initially make a pitch as the only candidate offering real change and a real break from the Blair/Brown/Miliband years, until Jeremy Corbyn entered the race and shifted the whole debate to the left. She is set to finish a disappointing fourth. PA Labour leadership: The Contenders Andy Burnham Andy Burnham started out as the front-runner in the leadership election, seen as the candidate of the left until Jeremy Corbyn entered the race. The former Cabinet minister has found himself squeezed between the growing populism of Corbyn’s radical agenda and the moderate, centre-left Yvette Cooper, not knowing which way to turn. It has attracted damaging labels such as ‘flip-flop Andy’, most notably over his response to the Government’s Welfare Bill. He remains hopeful he can win enough second preference votes to take him over the 50 per cent threshold ahead of Corbyn. PA Labour leadership: The Contenders Yvette Cooper.jpg Yvette Cooper has put her experience and achievements in government at the heart of her offer to the Labour party. She played a key part in setting up Sure Start in Tony Blair’s government and has pledged to continue her record on delivering for young families by promising a “revolution in the way families are supported” by introducing universal free childcare. She has also championed her role as a full-time working mother, taking pride in telling audiences that she does the school run for the kids before her day starts as a politician. But she has been criticised for being too wooden and lacking in passion and her attacks on Liz Kendall for “swallowing the Tory manifesto” at the start of the leadership contest have been criticised for helping Jeremy Corbyn brand all three mainstream candidates as ‘Tory-lite’. PA

“In my experience, people who go to the far Left are middle class kids who dressed down in denim while we were all wearing suits,” he told an audience at the Hay Festival.

The polling also suggests that Mr Corbyn’s supporters have a tendency to use social media to get their news and are more likely to have voted Liberal Democrat in 2010.