I haven't seen their latest claims. Generally, they claim "over 200,000" members, but that's got a huge asterisk that they never mention ... namely around 1/4 of them are free youth members. Members like my three kids who never have flown AMA and never will (zero interest in aviation despite living on Naval Air Stations their whole lives). So what really matters, and what the AMA never discusses, is the number of paying members.

Luckily we have a window into that, since they have to report membership revenue data on their IRS 990s. Here's the data through 2016. I've sent them a formal request for their 2017 forms. They had 30 days to respond and ... drum roll ... they're late. The excuse on the fifth day past the deadline when I asked? "The person doing that isn't here today." Really? Not there for over 30 days? Yeah right. It's deliberate delay.