Andy White Anthropology
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Who Can Afford a AAA Membership?

11/18/2014

9 Comments

 
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The AAA (American Anthropological Association) is the "central society" of professional anthropologists in the United States.  My membership in the AAA is up for renewal.  I've got a lot going on right now, but I'm going to take a few minutes to discuss the AAA's "income-based" dues structure: it is regressive and (I'm guessing) probably doesn't need to be.

The annual dues increase with income.  If you make $20,000/year, you pay $60 (0.30% of your income).  If you make $120,000/year, you pay $265 (0.22% of your income).  If you make more money, your actual dues go up but your rate goes down.  That's a regressive payment structure.

According to some statistics I found (U.S. Bureau of Labor), most anthropology professors have an annual salary between about $42,000 and $132,000, with a mean of around $80,000.  Those $42k, $80k, and $132k levels are marked with vertical lines on the graph above. I'm presuming that range is where most of the AAA's dues payments are coming from.

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If the AAA imposed a flat annual dues rate of about 0.25%, individuals making less than the mean of $80k would pay lower dues than they are now, and their friends making more would pay more (both would be paying the same proportion of their incomes).  The bottom portion of the chart to the right shows the difference: an individual (let's imagine he or she is a junior scholar) making $50k/year would pay about $50 less ($125 instead of $174), while an individual making twice that would pay about $15 more.

I don't have any information on the distribution of salaries in collegiate anthropology or the AAA's annual budgeting needs, and I'm not accountant, so I can't demonstrate that this sort of proportional dues system would work as far as revenue.  If it didn't work out that it would produce enough cash, however, the flat rate could just be incremented upwards until it did.

I know from personal experience that expenses associated with professional memberships impose a financial burden that can be difficult for those of us in the early stages of our careers (and/or without institutional support for conference travel, etc.) to absorb.  Lowering the rates for the those least able to afford them would be a helpful thing to do, and it would probably increase the AAA membership.  I joined last year because I had to interview at the meetings in Chicago.  I'm considering not renewing my membership this year simply because of the expense.

9 Comments
Stephen
11/18/2014 01:02:48 am

Nice analysis, Andy.

Reply
Jeff Plunkett
11/18/2014 01:14:47 am

This also begs the question that I often struggle with. Why should I be a member of these professional organizations? Is the cost worth the benefits? I haven't been a member of AAA since my undergraduate and I also let my SAA membership drop several years ago because I simply didn't see the benefit. If I want to go to the annual meeting I can just pay a little extra as a non-member and it will still be cheaper than joining. If I need an article from one of their journals for some research I am doing, these are readily available for free at the university libraries around me. I really think all these professional organizations need to look at there fees and adjust things to make it more attractive for us to give them our hard earned money. Just my 2 cents.

Reply
Elizabeth Bridges
11/18/2014 01:24:08 am

I'm curious: is AAA membership something that is typically covered out of some kind of university account once one has a tenure track job? Or is it always a personal expense? If so, that would add another serious factor in regression.

Reply
Jamie Clark
11/18/2014 02:51:27 am

It's not covered at my university. If I am lucky to get travel funds that contribute to a conference I might be able to get meeting dues paid, but not membership fees.

Reply
Elizabeth Bridges
11/18/2014 05:15:21 am

Jamie: does that change once you're tenured? Or promoted? Do you think it used to be the case but is changing where you are?

Robin
11/18/2014 02:23:55 am

Tweeted this out!! Much needed analysis - thank you Andy~

Reply
Andy
11/18/2014 05:05:00 am

The range of this critique far exceeds what I wrote about, but I agree with a lot of it. The expense of going to the AAA meetings last year was choking. http://www.alternet.org/education/professors-making-10000-year-academia-becoming-profession-only-elite-can-afford-0

Reply
Kevin Schwarz
11/18/2014 09:24:45 am

Good points all. A related idea is the SAA and AAA are not well suited, their dues structures or meetings, toward encouraging interested publics to join and attend. Steep fees only affordable to tenured professors. The fee structure drives down membership and attendance and inhibits the diffusion of knowledge.

Reply
Allison Foley
11/18/2014 11:50:13 pm

And of course the lower limit of $42,000 is still far above what most contingent faculty make. Those are the very academics who can least afford the conferences and dues but absolutely must attend (and go into further debt as a result) in order to interview for limited positions.

Reply



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