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This is a great article for demonstrating how mean and median can be used to manipulate perception.

jaysonelliot 9y ago
Median is the appropriate measure to use if you're looking at the overall pay of a company's workforce. Average/mean is disproportionately influenced by a small number of highly paid employees. In this case, the article is clearly demonstrating that despite Amazon's commanding market share, incredible wealth, and the largess bestowed upon their executives, some of their workforce is so poorly paid that they may not even make a living wage.
- goshx 9y ago
  That median is not US only.
- baby 9y ago
  > Median is the appropriate measure to use if you're looking at the overall pay of a company's workforce. I would disagree with that. Imagine this dataset of salaries: [1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10] You have around half employees being paid like shit (1) and half being paid well (10), but the median will show a good salary (10).
WhompingWindows 9y ago
Yes, I agree. Mean is obviously going to be to the right of median in this income distribution, since there will be many employees making 200k+. >In Seattle, Amazon’s more than 45,000 employees are paid an average of more than $110,000, according to an analysis of individual worker data posted to job review site Glassdoor. The median, or midpoint, of Amazon’s 566,000 individual employee salaries worldwide stood far lower. Granted, we are using average data from Glassdoor, whereas Amazon is self-reporting the median salary information. Plus, Amazon has part-time workers whose wages it annualizes to include the dataset. This makes me wonder though, are they counting the benefits that those workers are not receiving due to their lower number of hours?
aje403 9y ago
"Global Median" Seattletimes.com Don't they like Amazon out there or did the author fail an interview for Amazon or something?
fortythirteen 9y ago
Not to mention that this means the lower half of wage earners at Amazon make an average of $14 an hour, which isn't terrible for, what we can assume is, mostly unskilled labor.
nathanaldensr 9y ago
Replying to myself: I didn't mean to imply that the article or its contents are manipulative; I merely meant that it's a good example of how different numbers can be, and how that is often used to manipulate perception.

Median is the appropriate measure to use if you're looking at the overall pay of a company's workforce. Average/mean is disproportionately influenced by a small number of highly paid employees. In this case, the article is clearly demonstrating that despite Amazon's commanding market share, incredible wealth, and the largess bestowed upon their executives, some of their workforce is so poorly paid that they may not even make a living wage.

goshx 9y ago
That median is not US only.
baby 9y ago
> Median is the appropriate measure to use if you're looking at the overall pay of a company's workforce. I would disagree with that. Imagine this dataset of salaries: [1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10] You have around half employees being paid like shit (1) and half being paid well (10), but the median will show a good salary (10).

WhompingWindows 9y ago

Yes, I agree. Mean is obviously going to be to the right of median in this income distribution, since there will be many employees making 200k+. >In Seattle, Amazon’s more than 45,000 employees are paid an average of more than $110,000, according to an analysis of individual worker data posted to job review site Glassdoor. The median, or midpoint, of Amazon’s 566,000 individual employee salaries worldwide stood far lower. Granted, we are using average data from Glassdoor, whereas Amazon is self-reporting the median salary information. Plus, Amazon has part-time workers whose wages it annualizes to include the dataset. This makes me wonder though, are they counting the benefits that those workers are not receiving due to their lower number of hours?

aje403 9y ago

"Global Median" Seattletimes.com Don't they like Amazon out there or did the author fail an interview for Amazon or something?

fortythirteen 9y ago

Not to mention that this means the lower half of wage earners at Amazon make an average of $14 an hour, which isn't terrible for, what we can assume is, mostly unskilled labor.

nathanaldensr 9y ago

Replying to myself: I didn't mean to imply that the article or its contents are manipulative; I merely meant that it's a good example of how different numbers can be, and how that is often used to manipulate perception.