3 ms·
> the average monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment at an insane $3,447, according to a 2018 rent report by Adobo. The U.S. Census revealed in March, the med
by boltzmannbrain 8y ago
> the average monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment at an insane $3,447, according to a 2018 rent report by Adobo. The U.S. Census revealed in March, the median rent in San Francisco in 2016 was roughly over $1,600/month. These numbers are worrisome in a few ways: 1. The egregious rent amount that is required for somebody to live in the city today. 2. The jump in median rent in a mere two years. 3. The $1,600 median rent from 2016 also included rent-controlled apartments which indicates their rapid disappearance.
median != average
Fun example: In 1987 the average starting salary of University of North Carolina geography graduates was over $100,000. In 1986 Michael Jordan graduated.
- p1necone 8y agoI was taught in school that average can refer to mean, median or mode (is that common everywhere?). Mean seems to be the default when not specified but journalists really should be specific (also as you point out, median is more often than not the best/least misleading one to use). Edit: wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average) seems to suggest that they can all be considered "averages".
- Hupriene 8y agoI think it would be very unusual to refer to the mode as the average, especially if it wasn't close to the median or mean.
- darkerside 8y agoI think most people would agree, making it the average belief (by mode!)
- torstenvl 8y agoMode is the most common meaning for "average" in vernacular English. When someone says "I'm just your average guy," they are not doing math. They're comparing themselves to what the majority (or perceived majority, i.e. plurality) of other people are like.
- neumann 8y agoor perhaps implicit in the language of "I'm just your average guy" is that the central limit theorem applies.
- starpilot 8y agoWhoa that's wrong. Average == mean. Always. In Excel, in NumPy, the average() function calculates mean.
- dragonwriter 8y agoNo, it's not. Average can mean mean (any of them: e.g., geometric or harmonic as well as arithmetic), median, or mode. Usually, people using “average” outside of a specialized context where some other average is the conventional default mean arithmetic mean, but that's not the only thing it can mean, and, frankly, it's better just to avoid using “average” to refer to any summary statistic and just use the specific name for the statistic you want to use.
- pfarnsworth 8y agoYou are 100% incorrect. Go look it up in the dictionary. Mean == Average, by definition. Median is the middle point of a set, and mode is completely different, it's the most frequent number in a set. In no shape of form is "mode" ever confused with "average".
- zwily 8y agoThe first few dictionaries I looked at online said, in the first or second definition for “average”, something about it being “mean, median, or mode”: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/average https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/average https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/average https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/average https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/average https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/average I agree that arithmetic mean is usually what’s meant, but clearly median and mode can also be rightfully called “averages”.
- jakelazaroff 8y agoI like Merriam-Webster's first definition, which eschews any math terms and defines it as the value most representative of a set of data
- lotsofpulp 8y agoI assume they are intentionally conflating median and mean to elicit a more emotional response since they specifically mentioned median and omitted mean.
- tomrod 8y agoI disagree with the assertion (it is unsourced on wikipedia) -- colloquially the average is the arithmetic average, not a median or mode. At a next level up, average typically refers to - Arithmetic mean - Geometric mean (exp of average of log values) - Harmonic mean Mode and medians are measures of centrality, true, but are not equivalent to the arithmetic mean. Fun fact (h/t John Myles White) the arithmetic mean, median, and mode are the same calculation under different L-p norms.[0] [0] http://www.johnmyleswhite.com/notebook/2013/03/22/modes-medians-and-means-an-unifying-perspective/ http://www.johnmyleswhite.com/notebook/2013/03/22/modes-medi...
- sib 8y agoI was a math major and was taught (as in elementary, middle, and high school), that the "average" is the mean...
- pdxandi 8y agoI agree. Personally, I was never taught that they were all synonymous. For whatever it's worth, I was a EE major.