It’s Median vs. Mean in the Income Bowl

Your Orange County Edition had a full page devoted to four views on the “State of Orange County” (Jan. 2). The views expressed were interesting, diverse and, in some cases, provocative. One statement attributed to Prof. Mary Gilly of UC Irvine requires correction. The question related to the fact that “ . . . economists at Chapman College tell us the median family income in the county will be almost $50,000 next year.” The response by Prof. Gilly was, “You know that there are people in Newport Beach making well over $1 million a year, so there have got to be a lot of people making $10,000 and $20,000 a year to pull the median down to $50,000.”

Prof. Gilly must have been thinking about the mean (or average) family income when she made that statement. Her statement is not true for the median family income. The reason Chapman College economists quote the median is to avoid the distortion implied in the article. The median family income means that 50% of the families earn more and 50% earn less.

Neither the median nor the mean is sufficient to get a meaningful picture of income distribution. But I suppose Lorenz Curves and Gini Coefficients are not the sort of stuff one wants to read about on the day of all the bowl games.

DONALD R. BOOTH

Professor of Economics

Chapman College

Send letters to Orange County Business Editor, Los Angeles Times, P.O. Box 2008, Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626. Please include full name, address and phone number.