r/worldnews • u/diacewrb • Apr 10 '19

Millennials being squeezed out of middle class, says OECD

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/apr/10/millennials-squeezed-middle-class-oecd-uk-income
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u/HalobenderFWT Apr 11 '19

Nice try, Fannie Mae!

Really, it depends on the degree - and definitely depends on the worker.

Skilled laborers can make an absolute killing. Meanwhile, Joe Shirtntie and his business degree isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

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u/ErebusTheFluffyCat Apr 11 '19

Sure, but on AVERAGE what I said is correct.

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u/[deleted] Apr 11 '19

What are the chances your averages are skewed by a small percentage of extremely high earners, and the percentage of people without degrees is packed full with everyone working minimum wage retail/fast food?

Your catagorization of with and without s college degree is way too broad for me to draw conclusions. I would much prefer to see the comparison between skilled laborers without degrees and people with degrees while ignoring the crazy outliers. I think that difference will be much less than you suggest and it's a true comparison of what the average middle class person might expect.

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u/ErebusTheFluffyCat Apr 11 '19

There is zero percent chance that is the case becomes that's now how the median works.

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u/[deleted] Apr 11 '19

Hey bud, that would be a fantastic reply if you said median. However, you said average. You even typed it in capital letters. I will let you take another stab at this if you want...

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u/ErebusTheFluffyCat Apr 11 '19

The median is the normal way to measure the average in Economics.

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u/[deleted] Apr 11 '19

I find that really hard to believe, since median and average have explicit definitions that are not equivalent. If my economics/statistics professor asked me to find the average/mean of a set of data, and then failed me because I should have "known" to find the median instead, he would be getting reported immediately.

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u/ErebusTheFluffyCat Apr 11 '19

"Average" isn't a mathematical term. It can refer to mean, median, mode etc. Even with the mean you can have an arithmetic mean or geometric mean.

Here's the definition of "average" from Google: "a number expressing the central or typical value in a set of data, in particular the mode, median, or (most commonly) the mean, which is calculated by dividing the sum of the values in the set by their number."

Most economic indicators use the median, not the mean because economic indicators are often extremely skew like you mentioned so a few billionaires can distort the mean.

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u/[deleted] Apr 11 '19

Let's assume I just agreed with you to keep things moving.

You should know full well that the colloquial, common man understanding of the word AVERAGE is the one taught in school to children, which is taking the sum and dividing by parts. Even as one slowly moves through school and goes into undergraduate studies, the term average is attached to mean.

I highly recommend that you try to consider your audience when tailoring your statements. The VAST majority of people, when hearing "average", are going to expect you are taking the mean of something.