innumeracy in the lead (where? oh, you can guess)

[walkitout]

Headline: Minimum Wage Increases Faster Than Median Wage

Lead sentence/paragraph:

"In the last few years, the minimum wage in New York State has increased almost 40 percent, while the average pay for hourly workers has risen much more slowly, not even keeping pace with inflation, according to a report released Thursday by the federal Department of Labor."

Believe it or not, the _headline_ is correct, at least, assuming the rest of the story is right.

But guys, come on. Median != average. Mean = average. Median is the number where half of the items are more and half of the items are less. Very, very, very different from average.

View the innumeracy for yourself at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/11/nyregion/11wages.html

Comments

They've fixed it

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

It now says "median" instead of "average."

Technically a median is one type of average, though, no? Often it's a more meaningful measure of the general concept of "average" (that is, its connotation of regular, what you would expect, what happens to most people in this situation ...) than the mean is. I think that was the point.

Re: They've fixed it

[walkitout]

Nice to know they fixed it. Thanks!

I do recognize that some words have technical meanings and non-technical meanings. But given that the entire article is about technical terms, it seemed important to get it right. Certainly people in general frequently confuse median and average.