Talk:Median income

It has come to my attention that the ranked list on this page is woefully outdated or possibly completely fabricated. The source listed was archived in 2013, with data only as recent as 2011. Yet the listed dates for each row are much more recent, circa 2019. What numbers I have checked against the source don't line up with any year. Also, a quick search of several other sources for the most recent median income by country returns drastically different numbers. For example, the most recent World Bank data has the US at a median income (PPP) less than half the current listed value on this page ... source: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/median-income-by-country

Should the current list be preserved and amended? Or completely removed and replaced? Which sources are considered the most reliable for this kind of information? In order to most accurately update it. JimsMaher (talk) 22:06, 31 October 2022 (UTC)Reply

The source is the same as from the original 2013 link, with the most recent numbers posted there. The reason why the World Bank numbers are different is because the numbers are per capita, whereas the OECD figures are per equivalized household. However, the link you posted is not the World Bank so the numbers are not in themselves authoritative. Plus I do not see these same figures on the WB website at all. The World Bank only shows income Median PER PERSON PER DAY and you can find that here below. As you can see the overall ranking is very similar to the OECD. The $19,300 figure is outdated or wrong as well. The World Bank has per capita yearly median income is $24,000 ($65 per person per day day (x 365) is $24,000. $19,300 is likely from a previous year. But again, the link you posted is not an authoritative site so who knows how they made it. : https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-median-income?tab=table&country=OWID_WRL~ESP~KOR~MDG https://pip.worldbank.org/#home— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:2086:F080:D500:2934:7FBD:7BE (talk) 19:46, 1 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

• Examine and replace It seems obvious to me that this list should be updated if possible. If not possible, simply state the year clearly at the top of the list. But is that the real problem? Darkfrog24 (talk) 23:15, 1 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

Upon further examination, I'm not sure an RfC is even necessary here. You can see that the data are a bit old. You suspect the content might been placed in error or in bad faith. No one has touched that part of the article in weeks. There's no conflict to resolve.

It looks like the "2019 numbers" were added after a series of back-and-forths started by this edit [1] by an anon. It was January. Darkfrog24 (talk)

Looking into it some more... Then a named account added the 2019 numbers, but their only source was a bare link that doesn't work today. Then someone fixed up the ref but the link still didn't work... Yeah. There was at least one accusation of block evasion...

I'm confident saying this page has had some drama of some kind and that reexamining the figures and updating them with the soundest sourcing is justified. Remember, this article is good if it does either or two things: 1) Tells the reader what the concept "Median income" is. It doesn't need to be up to date to do that. The 2013 data convey that message just fine. 2) Tells the reader what the median income in each country of the world is, preferably all in the same, recent year. That would be good, but it can be a much taller order. Darkfrog24 (talk) 23:33, 1 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

Re:Darkfrog24, I see. Thank you. I'll wait a few more days to allow for further comments, hopefully with specific source recommendations, as I intend on updating the data myself (at the very least using more current data) and your suggestion of "all in the same" year is hopefully one that can be obliged. Oh, and if an RfC wasn't necessary or recommended here, what should I have done instead to get advice and some kind of consensus on the matter? See, I've wasted time in the past updating tabled lists only to have them reverted due to previously unknown preferences asserted by interested editors. So I want to be diligent here.

Again, if anyone has any specific links to get updated data from, preferably with all country's data from the same more recent year, please post them here, along with any further suggestions or comments. JimsMaher (talk) 00:08, 2 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

Someone simply forgot to add the current OECD link. It was the older version for some reason. See below for current recent results which match what is shown in the page. It was not fabricated. In fact the US figure matches exactly. Go to where it says “measure” and see median equivalized income

https://www.oecd.org/social/income-distribution-database.htm

Lneal001 (talk) 04:46, 2 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=IDD Lneal001 (talk) 04:49, 2 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

Re: Lneal001 ... reassuring if true. Unfortunately, the data page ("Measure") refuses to load in every way that I've tried to access it. On mobile: 4g, Samsung browser and chrome; wifi, Samsung and chrome. On Windows 10 laptop, wifi: Firefox, Chrome, and Edge. All returned varying forms of "Secure Connection Failed", "Didn't send any data" or "This page isn't working". I'll try again tomorrow but this has happened before, as when I first looked into this matter a few days ago. So I doubt it's a temporary maintenance issue. If anyone here can access the link in question, how are you doing so? Is anyone else not able to access the source data? JimsMaher (talk) 05:37, 2 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

it’s working now. It was down for some reason and in fact they just added 2020 data for some countries as well: https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=IDD

Lneal001 (talk) 13:50, 2 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

Ok, I emailed OECD immediately after my last comment and they got back to me and it's up now. Looking at "Median disposable income (current prices)", "Total population", shows the US number is correct at $42,800 in 2019, but every other country's value I check is different from the one shown here, at the very least because they're each listed in their local currency units, not USD. So, is there something I'm missing? Were editors converting every other value into USD themselves? If so, where's the transparency? If there's some other third party source with this same data converted into USD, where is it? JimsMaher (talk) 14:10, 2 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

I should add that this source's functionality on mobile devices is useless. On both of my mobile browsers the source does load but is completely unusable for purposes of viewing any data. I don't mean it's awkward or difficult. It's literally unviewable. Try for yourselves. Can we move past this source and find one that can be readily verified without having to be on the correct platform or doing manual currency conversions for every country besides the US? JimsMaher (talk) 14:27, 2 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

I was not logged on my username, but I went ahead and "cleaned it up" using any most recent figures. I was forced to use a desktop. As the page had said for years now, because the source indeed only had income in national currency units, they were converted using the PPPs, but this time from the same source. Good thing is the OECD now provides those figures from the same link. Before, people had to use the PPPs from another link (world bank). The OECD link works now, but from mobile phone it will not work unfortunately. Lneal001 (talk) 15:32, 2 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

If someone wants to have a separate section, involving more countries, there is a world bank sourced page for median daily income per person. However, I do not have time to do it, but here is the source: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/mean-versus-median-monthly-per-capita-expenditure-or-income?tab=table&time=2009..2020 Lneal001 (talk) 15:43, 2 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

Re: LLneal001 ... please clarify precisely how they were "converted using the PPPs". We need transparency here. So if this is going to stick, you'll have to show your work. Also, I take issue with continuing to use a source which is useless for most of users. Mobile browsing has been the majority since 2016. https://gs.statcounter.com/press/mobile-and-tablet-internet-usage-exceeds-desktop-for-first-time-worldwide JimsMaher (talk) 15:42, 2 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

As has been done on this page for years, you have to take the income figure and divide by the PPP rate. Feel free to verify. This is the way it has always been done since the source only provides the income in NCU. Lneal001 (talk) 15:45, 2 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

I see. Some further clarification with wording matching the source verbatim in the citation itself would be appreciated. As well as a note of what equivalized entails to arrive at those values in a verifiable way. Just looking for transparency here. So, in the process of checking your work, I noticed that not every year that is used matches between the median income and the PPP used to make the conversion. For instance, Costa Rica uses 2021 and 2020 respectively. Suffice it to say, it's a lot of work to check these values any time they're updated and at each turn here in the process of verification, I've noticed hiccup after hiccup in what should be a simple process of matching datasets. This page's history shows previous disputes over this (as pointed out before) and lack of accessibility for mobile users, the majority, remains a concern. So, towards a remedy of these ongoing concerns, are you aware of any other good datasets which offer median income by country in USD? Preferably all for the same year. JimsMaher (talk) 16:52, 2 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

The only datasets which provide recent median household income are the OECD, LIS, and World Bank. All are based on household surveys. The first two are nearly identical, and one has to convert the figures. The World Bank figures are expressed as dollars per day. I am not against adding that dataset here at all. In fact, in includes more countries. But it is too much work and I dont have time. I already spent 2 hours on just the OECD stuff today alone and that was only 30 entries. The WB dataset is the entire world. If I made any error, please feel free to revise. Lneal001 (talk) 17:45, 2 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

Also, the World Bank figures are not nearly as consistent as the OECD, which uses a standard definition. The WB figures use income and some use expenditures. In fact most countries in the developing world use expenditures and NOT income, and thus would not be useful here. https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/poverty-explorer?tab=table&facet=none&Metric=Median+income+or+expenditure&Poverty+line=%2410+a+day&Household+survey+data+type=Show+data+from+both+income+and+expenditure+surveys&Show+breaks+between+less+comparable+surveys=false&country=NGA~MOZ~ZMB~BOL~KEN~BGD~BOL~GEO Lneal001 (talk) 17:49, 2 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

I was adding Israel to the table, trying to apply the methodology used in the article, and I found that I wasn't getting quite the same numbers. Here are my numbers for the United States, Canada, Mexico and the UK, plus Israel, which I added:

Are they calculation/rounding errors in the original table, or am I using the wrong sources? I'm using Median Disposable Income (current prices) and Purchasing Power Parities for Private Consumption at the given link. Rxtreme (talk) 19:03, 17 March 2023 (UTC)Reply

Using the same method, the figures were out for a number of the CEE countries.

I wonder whether the whole table needs recalculating. LotusEating (talk) 23:33, 25 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Yes, it should be not only recalculated, but the data behind the calculations should be included in columns. Mwanner | Talk 15:13, 19 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

It seems odd to me to have a list of countries by median income adjusted for purchasing power in a "median income" article. When not just give the actual median income? We could compute this just by converting the given incomes to USD. (I'm not sure which source to use, or which date in the given year, but I assume there are standard approaches to each.)

Thoughts? Rxtreme (talk) 19:03, 18 March 2023 (UTC)Reply

Either way, the numbers are off. LotusEating (talk) 23:34, 25 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Seems to me this page would be far more useful if it included all the numbers used to arrive at the "equivalized" PPP number. There's plenty of room on the page. Mwanner | Talk 15:10, 19 March 2024 (UTC)Reply