Reference some of the questions above with respect to membership number vs. revenue. Big picture, they're dying financially. Just look at the trends. In every area that matters, the trends are in the wrong direction. Yet you read the EC notes and it's barely discussed. And if it is, the solution is "more of the same and hope for a different result."
AMA often touts their members numbers. I submit what actually matters is membership revenue, since over 90% of AMA revenue comes from membership dues. Another reason why AMA does NOT discuss membership revenue is this. When they say "numbers" they can artificially inflate them. A few years ago they gave away "free" youth memberships. I mean why stop there? Take it to it's logical conclusion and give free memberships to every person inside the US borders. They could rightfully claim 328 million members, but the number is meaningless as to the health of the organization. It could also be full members converting to park flyer membership. But again, given drop in total membership revenue, that's hardly a good news story.
But touting membership "numbers" as indicator of health is similar to an EC member in these forums touting number of "mentions" in the FAA RemoteID final rule as some indicator of AMA strength. But dig deeper and even that's hardly a good new story. Many of those mentions were in discussions of ideas rejected by the FAA. Why do they do it? Who knows. But it shows the collective leadership is doing an awful job running the place.
As to the staff expense vs. membership revenue. Yep, The math allows modest raises that when combined with declining revenue makes the percentage go up. My point is that if membership revenue is declining, can they afford to keep the same number of staff? I say no. Yet they're hiring and, so far as I can tell, not letting anyone go. And why is the latter important? Because despite the magazine losing money year after year, they keep the same people in charge.
One last note. All of my data comes from public information, IRS 990s downloaded from various non-profit watchdog sites. There was one year I requested one directly from AMA. Interesting that true to form, despite being able to generate a PDF of their filing with just a few keystrokes, they initially wanted to charge me for it. Nothing like being transparent eh? The good news is that in the not too distant future, the IRS will make directly available these 990 filings. No more "mother may I?" from the AMA, and no more waiting until the watchdogs get access to the metadata for their sites.