Matt Johnson wrote:It would be a lot easier for me to get on board the union busting movement if the middle class were gaining too much ground in this country at the expense of billionaires, but from my perspective, union busters tend to be billionaires accusing workers of being greedy for wanting $70k a year with medical and dental benefits, and maybe a couple weeks of vacation.
Great soundbyte but not quite borne out by the actual data. The middle class (including lower-middle, middle, and upper-middle) has been growing:
Graph -->
https://fee.org/media/15400/upper-middl ... 5143769966" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Two different interpretations of the same data:
https://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2016/06 ... than-ever/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
https://www.urban.org/research/publicat ... ddle-class" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
How does this relate to Amtrak?....
Like Greyhound, the lower class and lower-middle are the most likely to be riding a train for routine transportation as opposed to discretionary travel. They've been consistently a shrinking population, which is why Greyhound is failing and with rail overlapping into the same clientele, probably part of the problem for Amtrak as well.
The middle-middle and upper-middle are more likely to value their time over experience, and have the disposable income to fly instead of take the train...
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