[throwaway201607]

First figure is pretty bad too: "How average U.S. rent has changed relative to median income." ... Why compare mean to median?

Simple example that shows this could be no big deal .

incomes = [2,4,8,500, 500] median income = 8

rents = [1,2,4, 250, 250 ] average rent = 101.4

OMG !!! SO MUCH MORE THAN AVERAGE INCOME.

[aminorex]

Average is not mean, it is ambiguous. For that matter, so is "income".