Hacker News Reader

Comment by jmcgough | Hacker News Reader

"One further important detail to consider is that truck drivers are well-paid. They provide a middle class income of about $40,000 per year. That’s a higher income than just about half (46%) of all tax filers, including those of married households."

Or, in other words, they make slightly less than the average tax filer.

View on HN

It is important to make a distinction between what they make and what they take home. In the US, workers subject to the DOT's "Hours of Service" rules (truckers, train crews, airplane pilots, etc) get very generous tak breaks and take home a far greater percentage of their earnings than most workers.

I made nearly 40K my first year in trucking and had no problem clearing 50K each year after that, and my total income tax rate was exactly 9%. I moved to a state with no state income tax and life was pretty good for a while, until I got tired of trucking. For those who enjoy it, it's not a bad income with very low barriers to entry.

This article lost me with the above statement. Perhaps it's not relevant to the central thesis of the piece, but to say that truckers are "well paid" is misguided. My father drove a truck for almost 2 decades. I would be very surprised if he ever drove fewer than 80 hours a week...and I'd be equally surprised if he was an outlier in this respect.

The work is painfully hard. It takes a toll on the drivers physically (because they're sedentary so much and because of the terrible ecosystem of truck stop food available to them), emotionally (endless hours staring at a road alone), and mentally. At the end of the day, they're lucky if they take home a minimum wage hourly rate for the work they do.

There are jobs out there that I wish we could find a way to get people out of and into other lines of work because, for the work they do, what they take home is a pittance and the price they pay is high. Truck driving would be way up on that list.

They make slightly less than the median tax filer. The difference is potentially significant (I have no idea what the statistics are)

average != median. They make slightly less than the median tax filer.

Median is an average. There are typically three averages in common use; mode, median and (arithmetic) mean. That people generally use "average" as short for "(arithmetic) mean average" is a colloquial shorthand.

Mode and median are not averages, just mean is.

Mode: "Like the statistical mean and median, the mode is a way of expressing, in a single number, important information about a random variable or a population. The numerical value of the mode is the same as that of the mean and median in a normal distribution, and it may be very different in highly skewed distributions." [1]

[1] http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode_(statistics)

I'm pretty sure that mode and median are considered averages.

Average: "In colloquial language, an average is the sum of a list of numbers divided by the number of numbers in the list. In mathematics and statistics, this would be called the arithmetic mean. However, the word average may also refer to the median, mode, or other central or typical value. In statistics, these are all known as measures of central tendency." [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average

Your own link calls mode an average, and the quote you provided says nothing about it not being an average. I'm not sure what you are trying to demonstrate with it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode_(statistics)#Comparison_o...

The quote clearly states that mode coincides with the mean (arithmetic average) and median (mid point of a distribution) in perfectly normally distributed populations. Therefore, mode is not the same as average in most cases, as perfect normal distribution is not that common.

Mode is the most commonly occurring value in distribution. According to some schools of thought, a distribution can have multiple modes.

Mode and median are not averages, just mean is.

No other way to put it; you are simply wrong. I could direct you to reference after reference, citation after citation, but it's clear from your other comments here that you're not willing to accept any reference or citation we make.

Why not at least try? I'd like to see something that is from a statistics or math source that does not resort to "colloquial" distortion to justify such use.

And note, I didn't down vote you in spirit of promoting a healthy discussion, you instead have, so who's really unwilling to hear opposing opinions?

The best flavour of ice-cream is a matter of opinion.

This is not.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com