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by orclev 2131 days ago
Median is just the arbitrary mid point between the two extremes, that doesn't actually mean anything useful to the average person. If you picked someone at random from the subset of the US population that reports an income (presumably the working population) and asked them what their income is, the most likely answer is the mode value, or in 2014 about $22,000. That's reality. That's why that is important.

The median income ($53,000) is literally pointless except as yet another indicator of how unbalanced the economy is. If the economy was perfectly balanced the median and mean would be the same, but they're nowhere near that. The median was $53,000, while the mean was $75,000. An incredibly large chunk of the US is making significantly less than a handful of massive earners. And that's not even factoring in all the dirty tricks that the richest use to hide their wealth like offshoring bank accounts and shifting most of their assets into capital gains.
2 comments
anonunivgrad 2130 days ago
Median is significant because half make more and half make less. That over half of America makes over 50k is very meaningful.

Mode is just the exact number that appears most often in the distribution. Salaries are a continuous range, except for the various minimum wages. That is why the mode is so low. It doesn’t tell you anything.

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kortilla 2130 days ago
>and asked them what their income is, the most likely answer is the mode value, or in 2014 about $22,000. That's reality. That's why that is important.

FFS no. That’s not what the mode means. Mode does not imply that’s the majority probability, it’s just the single highest probability out of the possible outcomes.

Statistically speaking, if you asked random people what their income was, the majority would not have an income of $22k. Let that sink in. Your whole mental model of this is deeply flawed. “Mode” != “majority”.

Consider this distribution:

1,2,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16

What is the mode? Do you see why the mode is meaningless shit when discussing what the distribution looks like?

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