Average salary

[ThomasSoerensen]

Indeed and also accounts for the rather old fashioned word "modish" to describe the fashionable.

Anyway getting back on track to the conversation in hand, 1500 Euros per month is indeed a very low amount to live on.
Which Is why I suspected it was a median.
The mean is always dragged to the "right" by the relatively few multimillionaires in any country,

So if it a proper mean and Germany has an income receiving population of 80% of the total population (the 20% is younger than 16 years is my assumption)

This means that you have 50% of 80% of 80 million (rough total population)= 32.000.000 people who get by on less than 1500 EUR per month. Whether the median moves the number to the right or not, that is still a lot of people receiving very low incomes.

[ThomasSoerensen]

This paints a more detailed picture:

Germany Average Salary Income - Job Comparison

Nice table.

And it only reinforces my feeling of disconnect financially from the salaried people.

[Bagpuss]

To me the word "average" always means mean.

I see Wikipedia defines "average" in the way that the majority here have stated, and I recently became aware (to my surprise) that the UK school statistics syllabus also uses that terminology, so I will allow that that is the correct definition.

However, in that case, the word is of no use as a technical term except to those studying statistics at a very rudimentary level. Those boasting of their knowledge of this definition appear slightly ridiculous to me, since a word with such a loose meaning has no place in any conversation precise enough to mention numbers.

I can't think of any context in which it would be acceptable to say the "average" is X (a number) where by average one meant the median. In an informal context (i.e. outside of an academic paper) one might use the term "average" to denote the mean, but one would never use it to denote the median.

I challenge all those who've pompously (if correctly) asserted that the mean is a type of average to find an example of a statistically literate person describing a number which is a median as an "average." (Educational materials covering introductory statistics don't count.) (Actually this is a trick challenge; apart from being impossible to prove (how do we know the number is a median if they don't say so?) there's also the issue that if they do do it I will respond that that by definition disqualifies them from being called statistically literate.)

(I should mention that I studied statistics for two years at university, and I'm pretty sure we were taught that "average" = "mean". It was a long time ago though, so maybe I've forgotten. As far as I can recall, the median and the mode weren't mentioned much as concepts after the first week of the first year, so the issue of what "average" meant wouldn't have been in focus for more than one lecture. Possibly we always used more precise terminology, so the issue never came up.)

There are a few issues here, anyone can search the internet to find examples of false positives to any argument, especially when it's a widely misunderstood topic. Wikipedia being a prime source of such inaccurate material.

No statistically literate person would ever use the term average therefore finding a text substituting Median or Mean or Mode for Average isn't going to happen.

Many people in this country are a bit thick, so misnomers like this are not uncommon.

[sasguru]

This means that you have 50% of 80% of 80 million (rough total population)= 32.000.000 people who get by on less than 1500 EUR per month. Whether the median moves the number to the right or not, that is still a lot of people receiving very low incomes.

No no no FFS!


Lets say there are 6 people with salaries (all in K)
10 20 20 30 40 100

The median is 25, the mode is 20 and the mean is approx 36.

See how the mean is distorted by the 100K person?
In a way the others are more "representative" in that if you picked a person at random they are more likely to be closer to 20 or 25 than 36.

[Mich the Tester]

No no no FFS!


Lets say there are 6 people with salaries (all in K)
10 20 20 30 40 100

The median is 25, the mode is 20 and the mean is approx 36.

See how the mean is distorted by the 100K person?
In a way the others are more "representative" in that if you picked a person at random they are more likely to be closer to 20 or 25 than 36.

I think what OP's getting at is a mythical Joe Bloggs, how much that Joe Bloggs is earning, and whether it's enough to keep Joe Bloggs respectably housed, fed and entertained so that he doesn't start causing big problems for the rest of us. Of course, you then need to know how many people fit into a certain bandwidth of Joe Bloggs' financial situation, to find out whether the peaceful lives of the middle and upper classes might be threatened by growing social or political unrest.

In your example, the mean is indeed 36. Imagine that 36 is also the sum of money needed to provide yourself with the basics of life; that could put the people on 40 and 100 in the vulnerable situation of being percieved as a privileged minority and the others seeing themselves as the downtrodden lumpenproletariat. If, say, 15 is the minimum needed to live a happy life, then they would perhaps not be percieved that way, as all your examples have enough to live, except for the one with 10, who could possibly be helped by the others.

[Alf W]

figures are a bit out of date but it shows the potential difference is significant enough to know which avaerage you are talking about.

The average person in the UK owns one fifth of a cat.

[Alf W]

1500 per month, not per week.

It says per person, per month. Hence multiplied it by 3 and 4 for 3 and 4 person households. It doesn't say per household or per economically active unit.

[sasguru]

I think what OP's getting at is a mythical Joe Bloggs, how much that Joe Bloggs is earning, and whether it's enough to keep Joe Bloggs respectably housed, fed and entertained so that he doesn't start causing big problems for the rest of us. Of course, you then need to know how many people fit into a certain bandwidth of Joe Bloggs' financial situation, to find out whether the peaceful lives of the middle and upper classes might be threatened by growing social or political unrest.

In your example, the mean is indeed 36. Imagine that 36 is also the sum of money needed to provide yourself with the basics of life; that could put the people on 40 and 100 in the vulnerable situation of being percieved as a privileged minority and the others seeing themselves as the downtrodden lumpenproletariat. If, say, 15 is the minimum needed to live a happy life, then they would perhaps not be percieved that way, as all your examples have enough to live, except for the one with 10, who could possibly be helped by the others.

And that's why we need accurate figures for who's getting what.
When it comes to salaries in a capitalist economy, the mean is a very poor statistic as the distribution of salaries is so massively skewed, with a small minority in the millions (dragging the mean up and making us think we're richer than we are) while the vast majority are well under 30K

[ThomasSoerensen]

No no no FFS!


Lets say there are 6 people with salaries (all in K)
10 20 20 30 40 100

The median is 25, the mode is 20 and the mean is approx 36.

See how the mean is distorted by the 100K person?
In a way the others are more "representative" in that if you picked a person at random they are more likely to be closer to 20 or 25 than 36.

with your dataset you have 3 people getting by on less than the median.

With the dataset of the german population of 80 million, assuming 80% get an income, how many people do you calculate get by on less than the median income?

[sasguru]

It says per person, per month. Hence multiplied it by 3 and 4 for 3 and 4 person households. It doesn't say per household or per economically active unit.

Do 3 or 4 adults usually cohabit together? Maybe in their early 20s, or in your gay commune, but really you should be multiplying by 2.