• LaLuzDelSol@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    That can’t be right though… 1000 people isn’t nearly enough to drag the average income down 5k BELOW the median income in a nation of over 300 million. It should still be higher due to the long tail on the high side of incomes.

    Proof: Average income in top 1% is 819k https://www.unbiased.com/discover/banking/how-much-income-puts-you-in-the-top-1-5-or-10#:~:text=To be in the top 1%25 of earners%2C you’,earn%20an%20average%20of%20%243%2C312%2C693.

    Solve the weighted average:

    819 * 0.01 + x*0.99 = 74.5

    Where x is the remaining average. X≈66.3k, and that’s excluding the ENTIRE 1% which is over a MILLION people at least, depending on how you count it. America is big.

    • chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      5 months ago

      I guess the lesson here is don’t trust unsourced factual claims in political memes because they are probably just made up

    • DahGangalang@infosec.pub
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      5 months ago

      Yeah, these numbers don’t make sense.

      To explain the first panel alone, by removing the top ten earners from the data set, you’d move the median to.the lower end by 5 “slots”. I’m confident that there are more than 100 people in the USA who make between $65k and $75k (I know at least 25).

      If they mean the average/mean, that still doesn’t add up. Assuming that the US population is about 350 million and that 350,000,000 - 10 ~= 350 million.

      NGL, formatting the equations and walking then out step by step is a pain, esp on mobile, but the answer I came to is by multiplying the difference in mean values (~$10,000) by the US Population (350 million), which yields $300,000,000,000 or about 10 billion per person once evenly distributed.

      Elon Musk (2nd richest man in the world at time of writing) has a net worth of less than $5 billion rn, but the numbers here imply that the top earners in the US made at least 60x that amount.

      TL;DR: I’mma need some sources on this.

      Edit: on my app (Voyager/Wefwef) I can’t save draft comments to go look at the meme while commenting, so definitely have some things off from.what the meme was saying, but they’re close enough I’m leaving as it.

      Also, spelling/grammar

      • EvacuateSoul@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Your slot argument only makes sense for median, when the picture is about means. I still think it’s off though.

        • DahGangalang@infosec.pub
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          5 months ago

          Yeah, I def misread the original meme, but was too committed to the comment when I wanted to.double check somethings.

          I use Voyager/WefWef or browsing Lemmy and (to the beat of my knowledge) don’t have a way to save draft comments while double checking the content I’m commenting on. I suppose I should probably make an edit addressing this…

          • TheLowestStone@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            When that would happen to me while using rif to browse Reddit, I would use copy/paste to “save” what I had written while I reread the post.

            • DahGangalang@infosec.pub
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              5 months ago

              Ugh, yeah, but it just gets so tedious.

              Besides, I figure it doesn’t matter since we’re all just bots talking to bots. /s

    • bratorange@feddit.de
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      5 months ago

      But I think this is only about wages right? It doesn’t take into account growth in net worth based on shares, does it?

        • bratorange@feddit.de
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          5 months ago

          Not sure about this. However if this was the case, income would be a pretty useless term in terms of describing financial inequality, as a lot of wealth gained would be excluded by this definition.