TurboTax Sillyness

[kylakae]

Poll Average US Income

Comments

[thelonedragon]

It depends on which income class you are looking at as well.
For the upper-lower class the average yearly household income is $48,201.00 according to the US Census Bureau in 2006.

If you are looking at the household of the middle-middle class $120,000 is about correct and then the upper-middle is closer to $200,000.

[kylakae]

I kinda wondered if they were looking at an average of TurboTax users.

[thelonedragon]

It could be.

[willful_zephyr]

Average/Mean is a silly concept in this case, by itself. You'd need to throw in the Median, and perhaps the 25, 75, and 90 percentiles as well.

[kylakae]

Good point!

[willful_zephyr]

According to the US Census, the median household income for Texas in 2006/2007 was $45,294.

But, I can totally believe a national average of $120k.

[interactiveleaf]

You always beat me to the good comments.

But, yeah, what he said. "Average" is a worthless concept in this case.

[otherbill]

Yeah, this is a "median versus mode" sort of thing.

If you have nine Wal-Mart employees (annual salary, $20,000) and one professional athlete (annual salary, $5 million), then the "average salary" is over a half a million dollars, never mind the fact that the vast majority of the population doesn't earn anywhere close to that. The insanely high incomes, as rare as they may be, cause a pretty dramatic skew in the average.

Having said that, I wouldn't doubt TurboTax's numbers, as proposterous as they sound. They make their income off of this stuff, so I'd hope they'd've done their research.

(Plus, reporting by "household" accounts for two-income families. I know quite a few couples that probably break six figures, collectively.)

[randwolf]

But the median is $47,300. Bill Gates walked into the bar. Via Paul Krugman.

[edited for cleanup and additional link]

[not_only_no]

Average may be about right. The very wealthy skew an average upward. 'Median' would be more telling....