Amtrak. The trains usually smell funny. They're very often late, sometimes very late. The rail cars are old, the routes are slow, and the cafe care is basically just a place to eat glorified MREs.
So their people can't possibly be making that much money, right?
Wrong!
Amtrak, the national passenger railroad company of the U.S., is hiding the salaries of its employees while running a massive deficit year after year, according to data from Open The Books.
The rail company paid its 19,000 employees an average salary of $121,000 for fiscal year 2022, with the exact numbers being hidden by Amtrak through its use of an exemption to the Freedom of Information Act...
One. Hundred. And. Twenty. One. Thousand. Dollars.
That is a lot of money (well, at least for another year or two if inflation keeps up).
That's not all: The company's "top executives" reportedly "made between $504,000 and $780,000" in 2022. These salaries would be astonishingly high for any company, let alone one that so often fails to fulfill its most basic and uncomplicated mandate (i.e., getting a train somewhere on time).
Beyond that, the company can't even make money on the services it does provide: It loses hundreds of dollars per passenger on many of its most notable lines, including $288 per rider from Los Angeles to Chicago and $566 from New Orleans to Los Angeles.
Amtrak regularly pulls down billions in federal subsidies to help cover its operating costs.
Government!
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