{"id":62954,"date":"2014-07-05T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-07-05T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=62954"},"modified":"2014-06-15T00:43:06","modified_gmt":"2014-06-15T05:43:06","slug":"saturday-stat-main-mean-and-median-street","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2014\/07\/05\/saturday-stat-main-mean-and-median-street\/","title":{"rendered":"Saturday Stat: Main, Mean, and Median Street"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Mean and median are two measures of &#8220;average.&#8221; \u00a0The mean is the average as we typically think of it: the sum of things\u00a0divided by the total number of things. \u00a0The median, in contrast, is literally the number in the middle if we align all the quantities in order. \u00a0People often use median instead of mean because it is insensitive to extreme outliers which may skew the mean in one direction or another.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">For a quick illustration of the difference, I often use the example of income. I choose a plausible average (mean) for the classroom population and review the math. \u201cIf Bill Gates walks into the room,\u201d I say, \u201cthe average income is now in the billions. The median hasn\u2019t moved, but the mean has gone way up.\u201d So has the Gini coefficient.<\/span><br style=\"color: #000000;\" \/><br style=\"color: #000000;\" \/><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Here\u2019s a more realistic and global illustration \u2013 the net worth of people in the wealthier countries.\u00a0 The U.S. ranks fourth in mean\u00a0worth \u2013 $301,000 per person&#8230;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2014\/06\/1-2-Copy3.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-0\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-62955\" src=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2014\/06\/1-2-Copy3-500x330.jpg\" alt=\"1 (2) - Copy\" width=\"500\" height=\"330\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2014\/06\/1-2-Copy3-500x330.jpg 500w, https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2014\/06\/1-2-Copy3.jpg 629w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">&#8230;but the median is far lower \u2013 $45,000, 19th out of the twenty nations shown.\u00a0 (The graph is from Credit Suisse via\u00a0<\/span><a style=\"color: #747474;\" href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2014\/06\/11\/news\/economy\/middle-class-wealth\/index.html\">CNN<\/a>.<span style=\"color: #000000;\">)<\/span><br style=\"color: #000000;\" \/><br style=\"color: #000000;\" \/><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The U.S. is a wealthy nation compared with others, but\u00a0 \u201caverage\u201d Americans, in the way that term is generally understood, are poorer than their counterparts in other countries.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<span class=\"ft_signature\"> Jay Livingston is the chair of the Sociology Department at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/profilepages\/view_profile.php?username=livingstonj\">Montclair State University<\/a>.  You can follow him at <a href=\"http:\/\/montclairsoci.blogspot.com\/\">Montclair SocioBlog<\/a> or on <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/JayLivingston\">Twitter<\/a>.<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mean and median are two measures of &#8220;average.&#8221; \u00a0The mean is the average as we typically think of it: the sum of things\u00a0divided by the total number of things. \u00a0The median, in contrast, is literally the number in the middle if we align all the quantities in order. \u00a0People often use median instead of mean [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":258,"featured_media":62955,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[29,260,274,3920],"class_list":["post-62954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-class","tag-international-comparisons","tag-methodsuse-of-data","tag-nation-united-states"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2014\/06\/1-2-Copy3.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/258"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62954"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62958,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62954\/revisions\/62958"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}