The median income of American workers in 2017 was $36,903, while the average income was around $46,000. Average incomes are always going to be higher than medians because a few people with very high incomes will pull the average up without affecting the median. Since the lowest income people can earn is generally around zero but the highest is might be a thousand times greater than the $75,000 top-income class, the few people with vey high incomes aren’t balanced by people with very low incomes.
This point is important because in a post two months ago the Antiplanner erroneously blurred the distinction between median and average incomes. The post showed that the average incomes of transit riders were higher than the average of all workers, then concluded that “well over half of all transit riders earn” more than the national median income in 2016. That turns out not to be true: it appears that the average incomes of transit commuters began to exceed the national average in about 2008, but the median income of transit commuters did not exceed the national median until 2017.
At least, that’s what I calculate from table B08119 of the American Community Survey. This table shows how many people use various methods of commuting in each of eight income classes, ranging from below $10,000 to above $75,000. The Census Bureau doesn’t actually calculate average incomes, so I made the calculation by assuming that the average income of, say the $15,000 to $25,000 class was $20,000. For the under $10,000 class I used $7,500 and for the above $75,000 class I used $90,000. Continue reading
