Episode 46.
What is an "Average" American?

Question:

Key Points:

• The term "Average" could be interpreted as the "mean", "median", or "mode"
• The mean is calculated by adding up all of the values and dividing by the number of values
• The median is the "middle" value, which is found with the same number of values on each side
• The mode is the most common value in the list
• Discrete variables have a limited number of values (like the states of matter), but continuous variables could be so many different numbers that the single most common value is not usually useful
• To find the mode of a continuous variable, all of the values are put into "buckets"
• American Averages:

  	Mean	Median	Mode
  Income	$63,500	$43,000	$30,000 - $75,000
  Land Ownsership	4.4 Acres	0.2 Acres	0 Acres
  Age	38.1	38.4	Millenials (Born 1981-1996)

• Other modes: more white than non-white, more non-college than college graduate, more females than males
• Planet Money did a podcast on The Modal American. They found that the group of people that had the most number of Americans in it is a Gen X male, worked full-time, non-college, upper-middle-income, white, married, and lives in the suburbs
• The second modal American is a Boomer female, not working full-time, non-college, middle income, white married, lives in the suburbs
• Be careful when people say "Average American" because the mean, median, and mode can mean very different things, and the mode can be almost anything for continuous variables based on the bucketing used