Don't quote me on this because I am not sure but, I read once that the average income in the US is now around 60 thousand.

I am not sure of the 60 grand figure but whatever it was, it was about or nearly double what I figure the average should be.

Seriously, I know perhaps 10 people who actually make that much. I know about a thousand who make less than 30 however.

Either I live in a very low rent part of the world or, the people who got these averages are cheating somehow.

Averages are tricky things. To average 60 grand, a lot of people would have to be making in excess of 250,000 or more to compensate for the people who make minimum wage, which is still very much a reality.

I realize that there are people who make 250 grand or more, but its probably 1 in 100 compared to those making 12 to 15 thousand, which is poverty level.

I wonder, do we have any mathematicians here who could figure out how many rich people it takes to offset the vast majority of poor people enough to make an average of 60,000 annually?

I wish I had the article I read. " SRC="images/smiles/sad.gif">

...and all are well above poverty level. Not necessarily a bad thing but on the other side of the coin, I know no one at all who makes 10,000 monthly and many who make a whopping 2,000. I am not saying there are no high income people around, I just do not associate with them.

Says a lot about the dividing lines of the US that are still present. " SRC="images/smiles/sad.gif">

Teachers, now thats a thread we should begin.

Me?

I was raised to believe that "Nice" meant neighborly, not fancy. I assume you mean fancy? Ritzy?

I once met the man who now owns the biggest house in Arkansas. When he asked what I thought of his home I didn't know exactly what to say. I couldn't think of one "nice" thing anyway.

In the end I settled for "Embarrassed"

He asked "Why are you embarrassed?" I told him "Because you obviously are not aware that you should be you have 1 wife and 2 very small children, why do you need all this?

At that time I lived in a modest home. 3 bedroom 2 bath. His living room alone was as big as my entire home.

I left with a bad taste in my mouth.

Yeah, averages are nasty things. I wonder though, how many millionaires it takes to compensate poverty level incomes enough to make 60k feasible? I used to live in Dallas. The mean income was higher than the outlying areas but still 60k was not so common as be an average. I now live in a much lower income area. 60k would be an astronomically high average.

Personally, I think they should omit the high and low end pay scales and average whats in between to get a more realistic average. I don't know if that would work but I have seen companies do it to tally loss and gain.

All I know for sure is, 60k seems a bit high.

The median income is found by placing everyone in order of income, and taking the value in the middle of the list. So if the distribution is skewed towards one end (as you are suggesting), the median will make light of this. Hence this is a more meaningful measure.

To gauge income equality (which is the real issue here), the most common statistical method is to find the Gini coefficient. I forget the method, its something like the ratio of people in the top 20% income bracket with the bottom 20%. It gives a number thats a fairly good measure of how even the distribution of wealth is in an economy.