French people like to do things their own way. When they brought McDonald’s to their country, they customized it right down to the famous yellow on red logo that we have in the United States. In France, they like a…
Blog Archives
NPR thinks the average American looks like the average Trump supporter
Planet Money and the New York Times’ Ben Casselman teamed up to try to demonstrate that, “Mode, not average, is a better way to find the typical American.” They are wrong. Here is how they set up the issue: MALONE:…
Posted in Metrology
The average Canadian became richer than the average American a decade ago.
Most people think that most Americans are richer than Canadians because that was true for most of history, but that ended a decade ago. The Great Recession of 2008 hurt Americans more than Canadians and the median income in Canada…
Posted in Medianism
Census updates median income data
There is a new Census Bureau map showing the median annual household income (averaged over the past five years) shows where America is richer and what areas are poorer. [Source: U.S. Census Bureau] It is particularly interesting to see the…
Posted in Medianism
Great article about replacing GDP
David Leonhardt has a great new article about measuring economic progress. This graph shows the main problem with GDP. It has become completely divorced from the reality for 90% of Americans: By The New York Times | Source: Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel…
Posted in MELI & Econ Stats
Income growth for different age groups in America
The distribution of income deserves more attention. One reason why college seems less affordable is that average real wages for young people have fallen since the 1970s whereas tuition has risen. A lot. Of course, the average college student doesn’t…
Posted in MELI & Econ Stats
New bill would require better measures of median income (plus a lot more)
GDP is a measure of total income in a country. For at least the two decades before 1980, American median income grew about as fast as GDP and Americans below the median income saw faster growth than Americans who were…
Posted in Inequality, Medianism
