It's one of those terms that are loosely defined (at least in certain societies) and mean very different things to different people.

Is an electrician earning US$80k/year middle class because he's well compensated for his work, or working class because he's doing manual labour?

In the 90s, I remember "family values" having been used by politicians as a polite euphemism for the very narrow "straight, Christian, atomic" view of what a family should be.

I'd definitely view a lack of divorce as a pretty big part of it.

But as you said, it's entirely personal and subjective. :)

% divorced among those married, by age 46:

Did not graduate from high school: 58.8

High school graduate, no college: 49.1

Some college or associate degree: 48.5

Bachelor's degree or higher: 29.8

https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2013/article/pdf/marriage-and-d...

But that's just my reading of it.

I should have remembered my audience and not made a joke about California's differences from the rest of the country.

https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2020/12/united-states...

I responded to your original comment because you said "and in my area the working class is very Catholic, black, or both. YMMV, not valid in California." which you say is a joke. What's the joke? Now I don't want to accuse you of contributing to this because I have no way of knowing where your beliefs about CA came from by (I'm going to go off on a tangent here) but what I've seen when it comes to California is that people now use it as a negative example for almost every comparison, often without evidence. It's done so much that there's now there's a negative connotation to the state itself that certainly isn't valid in all cases. It's so insidious how a belief / stereotype can just appear out of no where if it's just causally spread out.

California is an exception to all sorts of rules, due in part to its diversity and insane wealth. I could have said "Marriage is known to the State of California to cause cancer" and have been making the same joke.

Please note that I'm northeastern, and Cali/NYC are the butt of almost every joke, because both places have such a massive disconnect from the reality of middle America. I bet people from rural California know exactly the feeling I'm describing.

There's almost nothing anyone could say that will apply to the whole population or the whole geography, certainly not anything that wouldn't apply equally well (or badly) to all Americans.