[barneyg]

Keep in mind that the average is used and not the median, so the extremely high wages bring the average up while very low wages don't bring the average down that much. For example, if you have a county with 10 working people, one who makes $1.82 million while the other 9 earn $20,000, the average for that county is $200,000, while the median is still $20,000. Depending on what your objective is, you might make a point that the median is more representative (just like home prices).