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That's why they use Median Income When talking about average income in the US https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_...

thaumasiotes 3375 days ago

The claim I objected to is much more nonsensical based off of a median figure than it is when based off of a mean. You use median income if you want a sense of how much money a "typical person" earns as opposed to how much the entire population earns collectively. But neither median nor mean will tell you anything at all about the shape of the distribution.

And yes, as dragonwriter points out, your own link clearly shows that the mean US income for 2008 was just over $28K. (It also shows that the mean US income for 2008 was just under $27K; within-article consistency is not a big priority on Wikipedia...)

You're probably right that Ed was referring to the mean. However, Real Median Income was only $29k in 2008 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N

While Real Mean Income was $42k https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MAPAINUSA672N

thaumasiotes 3375 days ago

Do you happen to know why, according to that wikipedia page, "According to the U.S Census Bureau 'The per capita income for the overall population in 2008 was $26,964'", whereas according to the source of your charts (which suggest that citations should credit the Census Bureau!), it was $38,376? ( https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MAPAINUSA646N ). One of those is being seriously adjusted. I tend to suspect it's the Fed chart, which notes that its population base is those aged 15 years and over.

I'm still struggling to understand why you responded to my original comment in the first place. What point are you trying to make? The median income value tells you absolutely nothing about the relative numbers of people making incomes other than the median value.

Can't speak for wikipedia or those who make the edits, frankly the only reason I responded to you is I know you're confused and so is dragonwriter.

Feel free to take a gander at the Census Bureaus reporting of Personal Income. Table 1 Page 7. https://www.census.gov/prod/2009pubs/p60-236.pdf

Do they use Median or Mean? $27,834

Edit Dragonwriter, You don't understand the difference between Mean and Median Income, hint its not what you think it is

The first part of Table 1, on page six, reports medians. The per capita section, which is at the top of page 7, reports means (though it retains the median heading, which is admittedly poor data presentation.)

You have to read the footnotes.

The article you link to refers first to per capita income, which is mean (the usual average), and then the median.

>The Census Bureau releases estimates of household money income as medians, percent distributions by income categories, and on a per capita basis. Estimates are available by demographic characteristics of householders and by the composition of households

Yes, later in the article it says that, too. Which still is inconsistent with your claim; both the median and the usual average, the mean (per capita), are reported, it is not the case that just the median is used and reported as the "average".

https://www.census.gov/prod/2009pubs/p60-236.pdf

Strange, perhaps you should tell that to the Census Bureau.

PER CAPITA INCOME[4] Table 1: 2007 Estimate is $27,834, but they use the Median not the Mean as you assert...

Edit Neither of you understand there is a difference between what the Census Bureau Considers the Mean and Median Income. Failing to understand that Median Income is not simply half on this side and half on the other is your problem, feel free to read

http://mcdc.missouri.edu/allabout/measures_of_income/

thaumasiotes 3375 days ago

Here's the text of that [4] footnote, from the pdf you link:

> The data shown in this section are per capita incomes and their respective confidence intervals. Per capita income is the mean income computed for every man, woman, and child in a particular group. It is derived by dividing the total income of a particular group by the total population in that group (excluding patients or inmates in institutional quarters).

Please try to make arguments that aren't immediately falsified by the quotes you cite in "support".

> Edit Neither of you understand there is a difference between what the Census Bureau Considers the Mean and Median Income. Failing to understand that Median Income is not simply half on this side and half on the other is your problem, feel free to read http://mcdc.missouri.edu/allabout/measures_of_income/

Sure. From that link:

> The median of a distribution is the one that ranks in the middle; since there are 98,003 households in this county we can imply from the median that if you ranked all the households in this county by their income the one in the middle (ranking 49002) would have an income of $34,157.

Perhaps you should read the footnote [4]; while the heading on the column with income figures on the table says median, the figures in the per capita section are means, not medians. Here's the footnote text: "The data shown in this section are per capita incomes and their respective confidence intervals. Per capita income is the mean income computed for every man, woman, and child in a particular group. It is derived by dividing the total income of a particular group by the total population in that group (excluding patients or inmates in institutional quarters)."

> Neither of you understand there is a difference between what the Census Bureau Considers the Mean and Median Income.

No, actuslly, I do recognize that there is a difference between the mean and the median, that the Census publishes both, and that the former is the usual definition of "average" in unqualified English use.

> Failing to understand that Median Income is not simply half on this side and half on the other is your problem

No, even your source says that that is exactly what the median is. The mean, OTOH, is something else entirely.