That stat is nowhere in the Pew analysis. For those following this thread, the Pew study shows three things:

1. “The share of adults who live in middle-class households fell from 61% in 1971 to 50% in 2021, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of government data.”
2. “The rise in “household” income is more explained by the number of wage earners in the household.
3. college grads make more than their high school equivalents- at a time when college enrollment is dropping.

But let’s say your stat has some truth, “Families that have risen above the middle class may still be doing worse than they were in 2000 because the inflation-adjusted median income has declined in all but four states — North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Wyoming.”

I’m the top percent of this country but have empathy for the destruction of high paying middle income jobs here / perhaps some empathy on your part and trying to look at the core reasons and fix them might be helpful instead of bemoaning the struggling half who “don’t pay federal income taxes.”

Here is a wonderful stat for you. The income disparity in this country as surpassed that of the disparity right before the French Revolution.

Here is a great analysis by Pew (which I think we can agree doesn’t bias left or right) on the decline of the middle class in America over the past 50 years.

https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/trust/archive/fall-2022/how-the-american-middle-class-has-changed-in-the-past-five-decades

*Edit: just to say this is the second time you’ve thrown out a simplistic number without trying to understand the “why.” For example what you cite as “family income”’is actually “household” income and more and more households have moved to three wage earners. You seem to like talking points by laughing at those less fortunate.

Everyone I know recognizes that the bottom 50% don’t pay federal income tax - not exactly a secret. But to really complete the story you have to look at why the bottom 50% don’t pay and that due to the massive growth of income inequality of this country in the last 50 years, the destruction of good paying middle class jobs, the move to the giga economy (where poorly paid workers have to pay high self employment taxes (both ends of SS and Medicare taxes).

This is a really complicated story in this country and merely stating “50% don’t pay income tax is a Republican talking point and not understanding the “full picture.”

I spent 10 years in government before moving to Fortune 100. I watched both systems change. So I’m not disagreeing with you - I said that some big companies still have traditional pensions but the move is to matching 401ks with health insurance at retirement.

I didn’t point to the age of the system as a positive, just the opposite. It’s old infrastructure running 24/7 and my point was to give the people running it credit for making it work at all. Just recently did signaling options advance out of the early 1900s.

I grew up in southeast Brooklyn and not a subway in sight. I had to take the bus to D for my early job in the city. So I feel you. The issue is the absolute ridiculous cost of building new lines - just look at the 2.5 billion per mile to build the 2 on UES. Building subways in NYC is more than twice as expensive as building subways in other places in the world. Labor unions, environmental impact and guess like everything NYC - just expensive.

As I think I said earlier, the money used to build this LIRR GCT station, tunnels and track, should have been used to the long planned light rail line between Brooklyn and Queens.

If this gets done, it will help. Still a bus from southeast Brooklyn to the light rail but cut the time dramatically.

https://gothamist.com/news/brooklyn-queens-interborough-express-rail-project-quickly-moves-next-phase

I hate when I have to disagree with someone who I think I fundamentally agree with. But this is that case.

We live in a country far from “unadulterated capitalism.” The sheer number of regulatory agencies whose sole job is to regulate capitalism is astounding. We have social programs like Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security. In NYC, we tax people making even $200k a year (not exactly wealthy in this city) almost 50% between federal, payroll, state and city taxes. Again - not exactly unchecked capitalism.

That said, I absolutely agree with you that the wealth disparity in this county is unsustainable. The difference between the bottom 99% and top 1% is greater than at the time of the French Revolution. Federal tax cuts under the GOP mostly go to corporations and the ultra rich. Taxing passive income different than W2 income is a scam. But as long as the GOP has their base fooled to vote against their economic interests - this is not changing any time soon.

It’s a bit deceptive. Yes, no income tax because they are poor. But they still pay payroll taxes which given there income has a much higher impact on their day to day lives than the top 50%.

Do you appreciate how little the bottom 50% take home each week? And I guess now you want to tax them 🥴

Are you serious. Do you appreciate how underpaid public service workers are compared to the private sector? There is a ton of data out there for you to review.

Some companies - VZ, ATT and others still offer traditional pensions on par with what the city is offering. And where there is no traditional pension, most large companies offer 5% 401K matching.

The city benefits actually suck compared to the Fortune 500 world that I spent most of my life in after leaving government.

Why not offer the option of traditional Medicare with ability if the retiree to pay the Medicare supplement plan payment out of pocket; the same choice Medicare recipients get? The cost should be negligible for the city because the supplement plan payments would be borne by the retiree.

Although I very much appreciate the police presence, crime on the subway was overstated by people and sensationalized. In a world where everyone has video cameras and lots of easy - free- places to post the videos, crime seems out of control when the subway is actually quite safe. This is statistically true even with the spike since the pandemic.

Absolutely true on the ACA which was passed with no Republican support. But not because the Republicans wanted a better option without private insurance. They wanted no options at all. Obama, like Clinton, wanted universal Medicare-like insurance for everyone (or at least a public option to compete with the private insurers), but the lobbying of so called “center right” democrats killed those options off. So we are stuck with a private insurance based option with government support. Expensive for no reason other than insurance company profits. I’m all for capitalism - made my career in the capital markets. But health care is too fundamental to leave to unchecked market forces. And the Republicans have no solution that they have seriously offered.

Medicare Supplement plans predate GWB by quite a few years - 1992. Bush was president when Part D was signed into law. I liked GWB - donated to and voted for him. But todays Republican Party is an anathema to the party of Nixon, Bush senior, George W. Go look at the republicans party platforms from back then - they mostly read like democratic platforms. It was a time before the crazies took over the party.

1. Perception is quite literally not everything. We live in a world where everyone has a video camera on them at all times and free platforms (TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook) that incentivize sensationalism for profit. If we allow and don’t fight back with real statistics about crime in the subway - or NYC in general (which is the safest city in the US but you’d never know it from “perception”), we will be a losing battle. And if you believe it’s perception, how about posting against the sensationalism instead of being part of it. Your post here played into it! And the main reason ridership has not bounced back according to actual data has nothing to do with crime; it has everything to do with remote working. As of last month only 17% of office workers in NYC had returned to the office full time. Stop making stuff up!
2. Do you know that almost every other country in the world subsidizes their transit systems - they don’t expect them to be profitable. Or, like DC, and London (among others) charge high distance base fares. Do you want to pay $10 to get from distant Queens or Brooklyn to a Manhattan? That’s what you would pay in DC? Do you want to turn the subway into the LIRR or Metro North and charge those fares. It would solve the deficit really quickly. Do you appreciate just how inexpensive $2.75 is relative to all other transit options?
3. Your argument that having cell service underground is “Not a necessity,” is your subjective argument. My strong hunch is if I surveyed subway riders I would get a different answer than yours? The cost of this is a drop in bucket of what it costs to run the subway. It also addresses safety perception issues to be able to call 911 at any time.
4. I was born and raised in Brooklyn and lived in Astoria before Manhattan. So I have a lot of outer borough transit experience. The NQR from Queens got me into the city flawlessly. The D from Brooklyn the same. The L when I lived in Williamsburg was amazing. So I have no idea what you are talking about. So yeah “folks like me.”
5. Where we might agree is that we need outer borough options like a light rail between Brooklyn and Queens so that for most trips you don’t need to go on the subway into Manhattan to to get between Brooklyn and Queens.

If it was up to Republicans this is all we would have as options. The irony of older voters voting for people who want to strip them of their benefits. I believe not one republican in Congress last year voted to remove the Part D prescription “donut hole.”

This is a great example of what happens when you add the profit incentive into a health insurance product.

This is so awful. Medicare Advantage is neither Medicare nor is it an “advantage.”

MA plans have tiny regional networks. Medicare is nationwide. Here’s a crazy stat. The best cancer hospital in NYC, Sloan Kettering does not participate in any MA plan. Dana Farber has the life saving treatment- sorry, you are limited to NY providers.

MA plans can have high deductibles and there are those dreaded “pre approvals” before many services, including things like MRIs.

MA plans are for profit and, last year, made private insurance companies almost $2bb in profit. At the same time, they have denied legitimate claims and delayed payments. Here is the HHS Inspector General report detailing these for profit abuses by MA insurers:

https://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/OEI-09-18-00260.asp

The unions should be fighting back with all their might. I would never in a million years take an MA plan over Medicare with a supplement plan, which is $0 cost for services.

Here is the stat you requested:

“Overall, the system contains 248 miles (399 km) of routes,[11] translating into 665 miles (1,070 km) of revenue track[11] and a total of 850 miles (1,370 km) including non-revenue trackage.”

So revised:

NYC - 665 miles revenue track Seoul - 206 miles*

*A lot of sources report the Seoul number a lot higher, but include light rail and commuter rails - including those that go to rural areas. I’m comparing the core system (inside Seoul) to the NYC subway.

Indeed, in its reporting of ridership, Seoul includes commuter rails even to rural areas. So to compare ridership numbers with NYC, we would need to include the LIRR, Metro North, PATH and Jersey Transit

In Tokyo the groping of women is such a problem that they had to introduce women into cars.

Ahhh. Name calling. 😂😂😂😂

The US interference has absolutely nothing to do with the crises in these countries of today. Take a class.

South Korea is a country, not a city. So let’s look the biggest, Seoul, and compare it to NYC. And I’ve been to Seoul and ridden it.

NYC - 24/7. Seoul - 5am to 12am (You can do an awful lot of cleaning/ maintenance when you only run your trains 13 hours a day)

NYC - 472 stations Seoul - 302 stations

NYC - 850 miles track Seoul - 206 miles track

NYC - 1904 (most lines - early 1900s) Seoul - 1974

The only metric close is the number of daily riders.

Increasing post pandemic crime has been an issue with both systems. Just Google “Seoul subway crimes 2022.”

I’ll leave it up to Reddit to decide if this is a fair comparison.

What a ridiculous comment. “[T]he US being responsible for most of the destabilization” 😂 😂😂

Thank you! Exactly. People in NY don’t know how good and how cheap they have it. You have a subway that literally stops every few blocks in Manhattan, is incredibly cheap compared to other systems, is one the most ridden in the world (~ 6.5 million people a day), had the world’s only 24/7 service and is relatively clean and safe.

Totally support this. These laws are not enforced today. If you go to any techno mass event, everyone is snorting something. Coke is available by delivery services in the city. So the only people who get caught are either as a secondary offense or just unlucky.

How many people ride the subway every day? Do you know? Do you want to compare the crime rate per capita on the subway to any other city in the United States?

Exactly. Thank you. And I’m not a cop but I’m a life long New Yorker who hates these silly fact-less arguments.

No. We live in an era of cameras everywhere so police misconduct is sensationalized.

This is one of these silly statements that dominate rational discussion. For example, people, when surveyed, think the world is poorer now than 50 years ago, when actually poverty has been cut in half.

Just because the internet lets you see everything now, and everyone records everything, doesn’t mean that we live in an era of more police misconduct.