Remember when transit agencies guilt-tripped voters into supporting transit because it helped poor people who couldn’t afford their own cars? Nearly all poor people today have cars, so the number of low-income people who take transit to work is declining. Meanwhile, the fastest growth in transit commuting by far has been among people who earn more than $75,000 a year.
The Census Bureau divides workers into eight income classes. I don’t know how they decided on the division points, but in 2010, five of those classes had about 20 million people, while the $10,000 to $15,000 per year class had about 11 million and the $50,000 to $65,000 plus $65,000 to $75,000 together had about 20 million. The above chart, which is from table B08119 of the 2016 American Community Survey, shows that the income class most likely to take transit was the over $75,000 per year category. This was also true in 2010. Continue reading
