The residents of Benifairó de la Valldigna cannot explain the increase in the rent of their town
3/06/2025Mean and median are two different concepts and despite being one of the most basic in statistics, they are still commonly confused and misinterpreted today.
It is very common to observe that the different media talk about average salary, average income, average spending, etc. In these cases, a single piece of data, the mean, is provided to describe these variables. However, in such situations, it would be much more correct to use the median rather than the mean.
We are so used to using the mean that it is difficult for us to use the correct statistic (the median, in this case) when we want to describe the behavior of a certain variable. However, it is time to stop confusing the population and clearly explain both concepts, introducing the use of the second, so that people internalize the use of the median and understand that the mean is not always ideal. We can find a good example of this, as well as a good explanation in this article by Miguel Ángel Morales published in El País in November 2017.
Even when we know (or should know) that the mean is not very representative in terms of wealth or salary distributions, we continue to use it indiscriminately in all kinds of situations, without being accompanied by the median, as well as other measures of dispersion. Thus, it is not surprising that we find headlines like the one described in this post, which not only create confusion among the population, but also mistrust the statistics.
The data do not lie, it is the people who do not know how to interpret them who do it, either intentionally or out of ignorance.