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Comment by ausbah | Hacker News Reader

>There is one important caveat to keep in mind when thinking about our dataset. The SSA numbers include any wage earners whatsoever, even part-time workers like students and teenagers.

not leading with this feels like poor reporting

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Just scroll down - the whole site is filled with questionable 'data insights'.

Which City is Adding the Most Jobs in Your States in CA? San Bernardino. Oh wait, it is percentage mapped to region size, not to population - so going form 1 to 2 employees in a hypothetical empty but vast region would be a 100% growth, and nice peak on the map.

Percentage of people living in extreme poverty in Russia and Kazakhstan? 0.0% (hint: it is actually no data)

It is either a troll site, or a good example of data misinterpretation.

They also use the term “earn” but the numbers they are throwing around are entirely after-tax. That’s not even poor reporting. That’s intentionally misleading. No one thinks that money paid to the government in the form for tax is unearned by the individual.

The money that it says I make in my contract has basically been a meaningless number to me most of my life other than a hard number I don't need to calculate when comparing jobs. It is only now that I have a "true" job after graduate where I make enough money to be able to set aside some money before tax.

The money your employer pays you is what you actually earn. The fact that you pay taxes on your earnings does not reduce them. If your tax rate doubles next year, your earnings don't go down as a result (though your take-home will).

The IRS specifically defines earned income as what your employer pays you.

https://www.irs.gov/credits-deductions/individuals/earned-in...

Plus after tax can mean after one puts money into health coverage, retirement, a college fund, etc. That figure is much less scary as take-home than gross salary.

A lot of those part time workers are living on that wage, so it's not misleading to leave it out. Full time employment is quickly becoming something only office workers have.

Students and minors don't make up anywhere near half of the working population, though.

24% of the U.S. population is under the age of 18. If you include those that are in college, disabled, and retired then you are now at roughly 1/3 of the population. Based on the statististics provided in the article that would mean 75% of the population make above $30k.

> 24% of the U.S. population is under the age of 18.

We're talking about the US workforce, not the whole population.

When you look at the salary data for full-time-employed white men of prime working age the statistics aren't much rosier: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LEU0253204200A

Median salary: USD 34270.

Did you mean to link to something else? That y axis is the quantity of persons who are white men and working full time, not their median salaries.

That's embarrassing.

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