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That's why the median --- which is mentioned at 193k in the article --- is a much more useful metric for household income/net worth. It's just like saying whene
by jfim 3y ago
That's why the median --- which is mentioned at 193k in the article --- is a much more useful metric for household income/net worth. It's just like saying whenever Bill Gates walks into a room, the average person in that room instantly becomes a billionaire.
- astrea 3y agoReally tragic that you still fed the misleading nature of the title by repeating the median point. It was a really good article I thought and took the time to explain the numbers and related conclusions.
- marcusverus 3y agoPlease elaborate.
- astrea 3y agoSure. I agree that the title is incredibly clickbaity and misleading, but I really appreciated that the author took the time to explain the nuance of how misleading "average" can be when looked at in isolation and how the typical American actually looks like financially. With that, I was a bit disappointed to come to the comments and see that people still wanted to do the typical internet "well actually" and make the same exact point that was made in the article.
- zeroonetwothree 3y agoThe "average person" doesn't become a billionaire, but the average wealth becomes > $1 billion. Both mean and median are useful (as well as many other statistics), depending on what your goals are. Median can be very misleading in some contexts.
- naveen99 3y agoIt would be more useful if they counted expected lifetime income. Most assets are valued at net present value of discounted future cash flows. But they don’t count personal future income for the labor class in their wealth calculation. If you do, even people on welfare are basically millionaires.