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"average income" as reported is usually the median. Edit: I'm not sure why I'm getting downvotes. Anywhere you read about average incomes from a serious sourc

by eterm 11y ago

"average income" as reported is usually the median. Edit: I'm not sure why I'm getting downvotes. Anywhere you read about average incomes from a serious source it'll be the median, no one uses "mean income" for average when dealing with incomes, since the distribution is so skewed. If you even just google "average income" it'll report you the median. Median is so completely standard when reporting on income data that it gets short-handed to "average".

dionidium 11y ago
Anywhere you read about average incomes from a serious source it'll be the median, no one uses "mean income" for average when dealing with incomes This is demonstrably untrue. A search for "average income" returns articles referencing both median and mean incomes (and usually clearly distinguishing between the two).
pessimizer 11y ago
We're on the internet, you can link to examples if it is true.
ghaff 11y ago
I didn't downvote you but people probably did because, if all someone says is "average," most people will assume they're talking about the mean absent any other context. Yes, it's a bad measure to use for certain things but lots of bad measures are used in lots of places. (Now, if a piece talks exclusively and explicitly about medians and then uses a term such as "this average" that's probably OK because they've already stated that median is the only average they're discussing.) All Google is doing BTW is basically "deciding" that although you asked for average income, what you really wanted is median income because that's what people are looking for. So it basically reworded your query for you.
kevinpet 11y ago
Average in this article is GDP per capita, which is the mean, not the median.
cortesoft 11y ago
I think you are probably getting downvoted because the article explicitly says that they are using the mean for the general population: "Moreover, we compare median annual values for software engineers with mean annual values for the general population. Considering how large the income share of top earners is in several countries, annual median values for the general population might well show a different picture."

by eterm 11y ago

dionidium 11y ago

Anywhere you read about average incomes from a serious source it'll be the median, no one uses "mean income" for average when dealing with incomes This is demonstrably untrue. A search for "average income" returns articles referencing both median and mean incomes (and usually clearly distinguishing between the two).

pessimizer 11y ago

We're on the internet, you can link to examples if it is true.

ghaff 11y ago

I didn't downvote you but people probably did because, if all someone says is "average," most people will assume they're talking about the mean absent any other context. Yes, it's a bad measure to use for certain things but lots of bad measures are used in lots of places. (Now, if a piece talks exclusively and explicitly about medians and then uses a term such as "this average" that's probably OK because they've already stated that median is the only average they're discussing.) All Google is doing BTW is basically "deciding" that although you asked for average income, what you really wanted is median income because that's what people are looking for. So it basically reworded your query for you.

kevinpet 11y ago

Average in this article is GDP per capita, which is the mean, not the median.

cortesoft 11y ago

I think you are probably getting downvoted because the article explicitly says that they are using the mean for the general population: "Moreover, we compare median annual values for software engineers with mean annual values for the general population. Considering how large the income share of top earners is in several countries, annual median values for the general population might well show a different picture."