Income

[andrewducker]

The article on income and statistics here not only points out that I'm doing quite well for myself (being above both the median and the mean incomes), but points out how silly the 'average' really is - as it doesn't actually tell you very much that's useful/interesting.

makes it pretty clear that 2/3 of people earn below an average wage - because the richest people push the average up significantly.

I'm sure that I had something which told you what percentage of people in full time employment in the UK earned less than you - but I can't seem to find it now...

Comments

[del-c.livejournal.com]

Good to see the BBC getting a clue. I bashed them for this back in January, for this article.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

Strange - since someone else mentioned the salary data had been released, I had a look at the data on the UK National Statistics website. There, they state that the median earnings for full time employees were £457 (under £24,000 pa).

That is a lot more than the median of £377 shown in the BBC article. Perhaps the BBC were using both part time and full time employees? Just shows what you can do with statistics! Looking again at the BBC's chart, I am not sure that there description of the bars is correct, either - "each band representing 10% of the population": so I would have expected to see only ten bands. My guess is that they mean 1% bands.

The points you and the BBC make are absolutely right, though. Average is meaningless; median, mode and mean are useful.

And it is rather chastening - I am pretty far to the right, too; but only with regard to the chart!

[chuma.livejournal.com]

To be honest, a very basic understanding of maths and statistics would tell you that the averages are meaningless.

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

It's all misleading in another way, even with the revised chart. I'd be off the far right of the chart - but I am still not at all what could described as 'rich'. I know folks that pull in twice (or more) what I do - and they are not rich either. We all still have to work, and it's not generally to fund lavish lifetyles! The upper tail on that graph is fricking HUGE....

There's got to be some way of showing the gap between the poor/average/doin'prettyalright and the truly wealthy. It's huge gaps that make people unhappy/angry/depressed/discontent.

I wonder about all those people in Tower Hamlets staring across at Canary Wharf...