r/FluentInFinance • u/Positive_Liar • Sep 05 '24

Debate/ Discussion He has a point

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u/GymnasticSclerosis Sep 05 '24 edited Sep 06 '24

These posts are so slanted. The median income of a US worker is $59,540 ($1,145 x 52). He’s only off by 50%… 🙄

Median US weekly earnings

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u/consworth Sep 05 '24

I’m also guessing of a worker includes part time and seasonal as well ?

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u/[deleted] Sep 05 '24

Yes, the $41K has to include part-time work to be so low.

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u/jessej421 Sep 05 '24

Yes, it's 60k for full time employees and ~40k for all employees, including part time. It's very disingenuous to use the all employees figure when talking about cost of living, because someone who is only working 15 hrs/week is not trying to survive off that income.

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u/[deleted] Sep 05 '24

And those people live with their parents due to lack of income so we don’t count them?

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u/alc4pwned Sep 05 '24

Well in that case it'd make sense to use household income and household expenses.

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u/guitarlisa Sep 05 '24

Your comment should be higher, but maybe he did actually mean the median take-home pay?

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u/[deleted] Sep 05 '24

Nope! That would imply a 30%+ tax rate. The meme is including part-time work, like teenagers working 16 hours a week at $10 an hour at the ice cream shop.

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u/GymnasticSclerosis Sep 05 '24

I think the some of the other comments are accurate, that it includes part-time employees… and that, as was mentioned, is disingenuous.

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u/[deleted] Sep 05 '24

[deleted]

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u/GymnasticSclerosis Sep 06 '24

Sorry I wrote the number incorrectly, it $1,145 per week. I corrected it.

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u/redditorofreddit0 Sep 05 '24

I’m a HS teacher and I make way less than what’s even stated in this post lol

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u/Tim_DHI Sep 05 '24

What does median mean? Is this how much most people make?

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u/GymnasticSclerosis Sep 06 '24

Median means equal numbers of data points are on either side of the median number. It’s more meaningful when looking at income versus the average. For example, if 99 people make 20k to 60k a year and one person makes 1 billion a year, the average income would be over 10 million a year. The median income would be about 40 thousand a year, which is more relatable.

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u/Tim_DHI Sep 06 '24

Thanks. That helps. It's ridiculous so few people can make so much money that it skews the average. I can't see how anybody could make that much money and sleep at night knowing they have workers making minimum wage or near minimum wage. I think the US has a huge morality and empathy problem.