eli5 Why do we use median salary instead of mean salary?

Question

Wouldnt mean salary be a better representation of the public then median?

In: Other

Answer 1

It depends on the situation, I don’t know in what context you are asking. But a mean averages all points of data even if they are extreme. So for example if you have 5 people making 10 000$ and 1 making 100 000$, their average is 25 000$, which could be misleading, but their median is 10 000 $ which is more representative of the majority.