Median income

Imagine you are playing with your toys and you have 10 different toys. Now, your parents want to know how much money you make by selling your toys. They add up the price of each toy and get a total of $100.

Now, your parents want to know how much money you make on average by selling your toys. So, they divide the total of $100 by the number of toys you have, which is 10. They get an average of $10.

But, what if one of your toys is a super expensive toy, like a big toy car that is worth $50? Your average income will become skewed because of that one toy. That's where the median income comes into play.

The median income is the middle point of all your incomes if you were to line them up from smallest to largest. So, if you have 10 toys, the median income will be the price of your 5th toy if you were to list them in order.

So, if your toys are worth $1, $2, $3, $4, $5, $6, $7, $8, $9, and $50, the median income will be $5. This gives a more accurate representation of your income compared to the average income.

In the same way, when we talk about median income for people, we take the middle income of all the people in a certain group, like a city or a country. This gives us a better idea of how much most people earn rather than just the average income.