Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Median or mode, Wealth & Poverty

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

On 4/02/2003 7:40 PM, "Forbes Jan" <jan.forbes [at] dhhs.tas.gov.au> wrote:

> The median is the middle value of a list of values.  The peak of the bell
> curve, where most of the values fall, is the mode.
> 
> Which one you decide to use depends on things like the nature of the
> distribution and what you are using it for.  If it is skewed distribution
> the median is usually preferred over the mean.  If in doubt about the nature
> of the distribution, it is helpful to look at mean, media and mode as well
> as the standard deviation.

Thanks for the correction. Sorry to confuse people.

I still haven't located the mode but have a bit more info from a Sociology
text that I'm reading:

Wealth is determined by one's net assets -- the monetary value of everything
one owns minus one's debts. Wealth is the accumulation of savings or
investments. 1/3 of the US population has no net worth or wealth -- which
means they live from day to day. No income today, no food today.

Wealth in the United States is concentrated in the upper 10% of the
population which controls 86% of the nation's wealth. The top 1% owns more
than the bottom 90%. This concentration is greater than in any other
industrialized nation and has increased rapidly since the 1980s (during
Reagan's tenure as president, 1981-1989). The concentration of wealth in the
US is greater than at any time since 1929.

The World Bank defines poverty as an income of less than $1 a day per
person. By this definition poverty has declined since 1987 from 29% to 26%,
but most of this is decline in Asia. The US Federal poverty line is $16,660
for a family of four. In 1998 12.7% of the population was living below this
line.

This figure is determined by using the Department of Agriculture's dietary
requirements to calculate a low-cost food budget and multiplying this by 3
assuming that a household spends approximately 1/3 of its budget on food.

The "culture of poverty" is largely a myth. Only 22% of people living in
poverty one year will be in poverty the next. The largest causes of poverty
are temporary crises with under 5% living in poverty for more than two years
at a time. 41% of those living in poverty are working at least full time.
18% of the entire workforce living in poverty.

But since most of us couldn't imagine living on $4,140 (1/4 of $16,660) --
even living on an income of twice that would be difficult -- if cohousing is
going to extend to the poor, it will have to have capital investment from
the wealthy, directly or by taxation in the form of government grants.

Sharon
-- 
Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org



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