By dictionary definition, the terms median and mean are synonymous with the word average. HOWEVER, and this is what Domisoldo doesn't know (or doesn't care to enlighten himself with) is that under the rules of mathematics they are two entirely different things.
The
median is the middle value in a range of values arranged in sequence by size. To provide an example, to find the median of the following numbers - 1, 46, 21, 2030, 500, 67, 275 - you put them in numerical order and the one in the middle becomes the median: 1, 21, 46,
67, 275, 500, 2030. The answer in this case is 67.
The
mean (or average) is determined by adding up all the numbers and dividing by the number of numbers. So if we took those same numbers, added them up and divided by seven, you'd come up with the answer of 420.
So under the rules of mathematics, the median value is not always equal to the mean. Regardless of the amount of numbers in a sequence and their values, when going by the median figure the middle number is always selected. Therefore, it's quite possible for the median number to be much less (or much higher) than other numbers in a sequence, as in the example I provided.
If we put together all of the data provided by Domisoldo and itsthepopei and applied mathematical rule to it, the median US household income may be "in the middle" but is not the official average since the same census data also states that more than 47% of households make less than 25K. The only way we can find the actual average of household incomes, we'd have to total up the sum of incomes from over 136 million taxpayers and do the long division. Obviously, nobody here, Domisoldo or even the U.S. Census Bureau is going to do that. So they instead have used the median as a place holder and a benchmark to start figuring their numbers & percentages.
Being this is grade school academics, anyone knowing the facts would be able to figure this out. And in an issue where we have ill-informed people who want to put out distorted talking points about "half of Americans not paying taxes", one needs to go beyond the dictionary definitions of certain words and start doing the math. I know Domisoldo hates me now and has me on ignore because he can't deal with my so-called evilness, but someone needs to inform him that he should learn how to check his figures with a calculator and not his pseudo-Libertarian political beliefs. Last time I checked, that piece of hardware didn't have an equal sign on it.
