A newspaper article compares median net worth for black, Hispanic, and white households, as reported by the Pew Hispanic Center: The medians in 2002 were approximately $6,000 for black households, $8,000 for Hispanic households, and $89,000 for white households.32 Four statistics students are asked in a homework exercise to explain why researchers would report medians instead of means. Who gives the best answer?
Adam: Probably because medians are easier to compute. Brittany: I think they reported medians to make the results seem more dramatic, and make people aware of how discrimination against minorities can result in lower pay.
Carlos: If they'd wanted results to seem more dramatic, they would have used means. The reason they used medians was so they wouldn't be inflated by high outliers.
Dominique: In case they don't have the exact values for the households that they used, as long as the middle one is correct, the median will be accurate. Reporting the median is the best way to handle these data values.