What is the difference between Median and Average?

872 views

I was looking up the average networth of 30 year olds in the United States and it said: “The average net worth is $122,000 and the median net worth is $35,112” my brain is too smooth please help.

In: 8

87 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

According to this data, if all 30 year olds shared equally, everyone could have $122,000. However, the actual distribution of net worth is such that half of 30 year olds have less than $35,112 and the other half has more.

Anonymous 0 Comments

According to this data, if all 30 year olds shared equally, everyone could have $122,000. However, the actual distribution of net worth is such that half of 30 year olds have less than $35,112 and the other half has more.

Anonymous 0 Comments

According to this data, if all 30 year olds shared equally, everyone could have $122,000. However, the actual distribution of net worth is such that half of 30 year olds have less than $35,112 and the other half has more.

Anonymous 0 Comments

A median looks at all the entries, lines them up in order, and takes the middle one. There will always be 50% of entries above the median, and 50% below.

An average (arithmetic mean) takes all the values, adds them together and divides by the total number of entries.

The median doesn’t care about values, the mean doesn’t care about entries.

If we have the set 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 1000

The median is 5, but the mean is 115. Only one entry is above 115, but there are 4 entries above 5 and 4 below 5.

The median and mean will be the same number if you have either a normal distribution, a uniform distribution, or and infinite number of entries.

Anonymous 0 Comments

A median looks at all the entries, lines them up in order, and takes the middle one. There will always be 50% of entries above the median, and 50% below.

An average (arithmetic mean) takes all the values, adds them together and divides by the total number of entries.

The median doesn’t care about values, the mean doesn’t care about entries.

If we have the set 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 1000

The median is 5, but the mean is 115. Only one entry is above 115, but there are 4 entries above 5 and 4 below 5.

The median and mean will be the same number if you have either a normal distribution, a uniform distribution, or and infinite number of entries.

Anonymous 0 Comments

A median looks at all the entries, lines them up in order, and takes the middle one. There will always be 50% of entries above the median, and 50% below.

An average (arithmetic mean) takes all the values, adds them together and divides by the total number of entries.

The median doesn’t care about values, the mean doesn’t care about entries.

If we have the set 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 1000

The median is 5, but the mean is 115. Only one entry is above 115, but there are 4 entries above 5 and 4 below 5.

The median and mean will be the same number if you have either a normal distribution, a uniform distribution, or and infinite number of entries.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Mean (“average” typically) is the sum divided by the count. Aka: total earnings divided by number of earners. Gives an estimate of what you would “expect” a person selected at random to earn, but can be skewed a bit when for instance one person makes a $1million, and ten others make closer to $10thousand, the mean will be much higher than you’d intuit.

Median is “the earnings of the middle person”, so if you order everyone by how much they make, then count to the middle, whatever that person makes is the median. On its own, doesn’t tell you a lot of information, but combined with mean it can help paint a bigger picture.

In your example, median is well below average (mean). That means that the middle person (as well as half of everyone, since they make less than that person) makes less than the average. This suggest that there’s a lot of wealth at the very top, pulling the average up. An example would be sometime like: (1,1,2,3,33) the average is 8 (40/5), but the median is 2. That top end outlier pulls the average up, and more than half of everyone makes less than that average.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Mean (“average” typically) is the sum divided by the count. Aka: total earnings divided by number of earners. Gives an estimate of what you would “expect” a person selected at random to earn, but can be skewed a bit when for instance one person makes a $1million, and ten others make closer to $10thousand, the mean will be much higher than you’d intuit.

Median is “the earnings of the middle person”, so if you order everyone by how much they make, then count to the middle, whatever that person makes is the median. On its own, doesn’t tell you a lot of information, but combined with mean it can help paint a bigger picture.

In your example, median is well below average (mean). That means that the middle person (as well as half of everyone, since they make less than that person) makes less than the average. This suggest that there’s a lot of wealth at the very top, pulling the average up. An example would be sometime like: (1,1,2,3,33) the average is 8 (40/5), but the median is 2. That top end outlier pulls the average up, and more than half of everyone makes less than that average.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Average is where u take every persons income and add it up, then divide by how many people you counted.

Median is finding out what the person who is in the middle of the pack earns.

These two things are not always the same.

If you have 10 people earning medium wage, and 5 people earning super high wage. Then the average will be a lot higher than the medium wage, but the median will be the medium wage. In this way the median better respresent the “average person” because it doesn’t get impacted by super high (or low) earners.

Anonymous 0 Comments

When we talk about numbers, we sometimes want to know what the “middle” number is. There are two ways to figure this out: the median and the average.

The median is the middle number when we put all the numbers in order from smallest to biggest. Imagine you and your friends are all lined up from shortest to tallest. The friend in the middle of the line is like the median.

The average, on the other hand, is when we add up all the numbers and then divide by how many numbers there are. Imagine you and your friends all have a number that represents your height. To find the average, you add up everyone’s number and then divide by the number of friends you have.

So, the median is the middle number in a set of numbers when they’re put in order, and the average is when you add up all the numbers and then divide by how many numbers there are.