5 ms·

Median is $2,300 which brings this into perspective a bit more. http://www.valuepenguin.com/average-credit-card-debt http://www.valuepenguin.com/average-credit

• conception 10y ago
  Thanks for this. Was about to go nuts about how useless an average is on this sort of thing.
  • nostrebored 10y ago
    Well the median is an average so... And honestly both averages should be presented together, paints a terrifying picture
    • theandrewbailey 10y ago
      Median is the middle value of all values in a sequence. Average is the sum of all numbers in a sequence, divided by the count of values. Take [0,2,100]: average is 34, but median is 2.
      • trentmb 10y ago
        nostrebored is just pointing out that the median and arithmetic mean are both averages.
        • nostrebored 10y ago
          I'm being needlessly pedantic, but yeah.
      • deleted 10y ago
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    • LeifCarrotson 10y ago
      You're thinking of the mean.
      • gnaritas 10y ago
        Both median and mean are averages.
        • gcr 10y ago
          The median of a list of numbers is the value that minimizes the sum of absolute differences to each value, sum([abs(median - x) for x in list]) The average of a list of numbers is the value that minimizes the sum of squared difference to each value, sum([squared(mean - x) for x in list]) They're both summary statistics in that they're single numbers used to describe a dataset, but a median is not a "kind of average." The mean is the mean and nothing else.
          • gnaritas 10y ago
            Incorrect, median, mean, and mode are all types of averages. Usually when people say average they mean the mean, but they're all different kinds of averages trying to identify the central tendency. "Average: a number expressing the central or typical value in a set of data, in particular the mode, median, or (most commonly) the mean, which is calculated by dividing the sum of the values in the set by their number." -- Google
            • dragonwriter 10y ago
              > Incorrect, median, mean, and mode are all types of averages. There's a bunch of means (arithmetic, geometric, and harmonic, for instance), and they are all (as well as median and mode) averages. Though, usually when people say "mean" without further specifics they mean the "arithmetic mean", and usually when they say "average" without further specifics they also mean "arithmetic mean" (though "median" is also fairly common, and "mode" isn't that uncommon.)
    • ArkyBeagle 10y ago
      Median != mean. Usually, "average" is expected value, or mean.