Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Household income in the United States

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[edit] Household income in the United States

Self nomination This article covers the subject matter extensively and addresses it neutrally from several different vantage points. It made it to GA status wihtout a hitch and every single statement is referenced as well as completely NPOV. Please note that this article's subject matter is income statistics so it might not be as entertaining as some other articles but it covers and important issue concerning US society. (Besides entertainment isn't on the criteria list) I did my best to make all facts user-friendly and interpret their meaning so that even someone is unfamiliar with the subject can statisfy his or her curiosity. Thank you. Regards, Signature^brendel 04:23, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

• Comment the article is well done, but without some comparision to the rest of the world I don't think it is comprehensive, the United States doesn't exist on its own, and surely there are some interesting international comparisons that could be made within the OECD (at least). The lead should be broken into two paragraphs.--Peta 04:40, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, break the lead into two paragraph, okay I'll take a look. Also, you kind of have a point the US doesn't exsist alone, no. But unlike some measurements such as GDP per capita, Pucharsing power per capita, household income is not a universal measure. Many countries don't count the same way the US does and do not make the same numbers available. I'll take a look at the Canadian Census, perhaps I can find something the same as US data there. (International comparisions would certainly add to the article but are extremely difficult to find as definitions of household income and availability of data vary) Otherwise I guess I'm just assuming (considering the title) that the reader just kind of has an idea what $40,000 a year are worth-relatively speaking. Signature^brendel 04:49, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Is this useful (another link in case the first doesn't work). --Peta 05:27, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

The article name states clearly thats it deals with the United States and it is a statistical article similar to a list. What can you compare to the rest of the world without listing the same type of statistics for every country? That would make the article remarkably long. - Tutmosis 13:49, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'm still trying to figure something out but giving the same statistics for every country would not only make this article remarkably wrong but would also be impossible. Not every country uses "Household income" and even the definition of "household" varies. Signature^brendel 18:02, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Alrighty, I have looked at the article provided by Peta but none of the statistics there are comparable to the US. They would though be approriate if placed on the Poverty in the United States article as that article isn't as specific as this one. I have looked at the Candian Census-there is only one problem the statistics are Candian dollars ;-) So, I'll convert the amounts but will have to note that due to constant fluctuations on the currency market, conversion rates are always a bit of. Signature^brendel 18:57, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm a little confused, were you replying to me or Peta? My comment above was towards Peta comment. I'm not suggesting you put statistics from all other countries. - Tutmosis 20:04, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes I was relpying to Peta. Sorry for the confusion. Signature^brendel 20:27, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

• Comment: I would suggest that you start the lead with a description of what the article is talking about. Like define household income. Currently the article starts with a statistic and for that matter the article is a hell lot of statistics. I think the article is missing something. Aside from providing current statistics on the household income in the states I think the article should give an overview of previous stats and how they compare to the current ones. Reading the article I dont understand if each number is an improvement or a decrease from previous years. Also even though I have no idea, did the government make any efforts to improve any of this stats? or planning to. If they did then that would be a good thing to include. Also you might include the role household income plays on an economy or something of that sort. Ofcourse this subject matter is very new to me and my suggestions might be baseless so let me know what you think. The article looks great by the way. - Tutmosis 14:09, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I have attempted to bring in a description of what household income is-add a couple of sentencea to the intro. These are the standard stats used by the Census Bureau-so yes a comparison to 1990 for example is possible in some areas. Until 1999 much Census Data wasn't published only so I cannot find "counter-figures" for everything here. I will try and include some comparative statistics and add a new intro sentence. Signature^brendel 18:02, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I have added the 1990 median household income figure and explained its value considering inflation. Regards, Signature^brendel 19:19, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

• Support: Thanks for implementing my suggestions, your really did a good job on the article. You even made all the pictures and graphs yourself. The last thing is boldind the first mention of the title in the lead. It be really good if you could get "Household income in the United States" words together in the lead so it can be bolded. Good luck on your future projects. - Tutmosis 20:01, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I tweaked the first sentence a bit in order to apply bold face to the title-term. Thank you for your suggestions and support. Signature^brendel 20:13, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. It's well researched, and seems well structured, but wow it needs some more copyediting. I saw a number of sentences I can't even tell what they really meant or had awkward phrasing, enough so that I couldn't fix them. Taxman

Alright, I'll run a spell and grammar check and proof read it. Signature^brendel 03:51, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

• Weak oppose, for the most part it just needs a copyedit (some of which I've done myself). In some places you are missing commas. Other things to note:
  • "In order measure household income the pre-tax earnings of all persons in a household that are over the age of 15 are combined." This sentence either is missing a word or has too many words. I can't tell for sure.
  • "had mean of only one income" Should this be "had a mean"? I'm not sure enough of your meaning to change it myself.
  • Likewise, "below national median" or "below the national median"?
  • The states in the "income by state" chart should all be linked. Andrew Levine 12:40, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I am personally not done with the copyedit, but will be today-I will also suggest linking all the states. Signature^brendel 16:22, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

• Object. It certainly is impressive, especially the referencing, but there are some issues that I'd like to address. 1) and most serious - I fear the article is not comprehensive: I would like to see a section on history of that phenomena. And even more, important needed missing section are those about who analyzes this data and what is it used for. 2) lead could use a picture - even a graph would be nice 3) lead also needs many interlinks (per WP:BTW): in the very first sentence there are important unlinked concepts like wealth, government, institution, in the second household and resident, and the list could go on. 4) footnotes 8 and 9 are broken.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  10:25, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay as for history-there is not that much to say-though I'll see what I can do. I may add another mention of the Census Bureau-as this is the institution that measures households income. I'll add a graph and more wiki links. Links 8 and 8 will be fixed. Regards, Signature^brendel 23:46, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Piotr brings up a good point. History of household income would be very important to be comprhensive. What trends have there been, real vs. nominal, purchasing power, etc. Also the census bureau is one of the main collectors of that data, but the IRS also collects data on taxable income of course. Discussing the vagaries of that data and what differences it has to the census data would be valuable. In other words more discussion of the meaning of the data, less regurgitation of it. I'll look for more on the language improvement too. - Taxman ^Talk 12:32, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

• Comment: In addition to what Piotr and Taxman have just mentioned, I think it is vital to include some information on how the household income data is actually put into application. The first sentence says the data is "commonly used by the United States government as well as private institutions." But the article never gets around to giving examples of what they use it for. Andrew Levine 22:38, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'm currently traveling so I only check my watchlist briefly. But addressing your concerns: I'll add a paragraph for the application of the data and for how the economic survey works. Also, Household income is only real if you will. There is no pucharsing power or nominal household income. The census bureua simply counts the gross income of all income earners in a given household and since 2000 has been publishing this data in detail, for free online. Regards, Signature^brendel 17:39, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

• Object. 1a (prose) and 1c (facts). Economics articles can and should make an effort to explain things in a crystal-clear way to non-economists. This article is full of ambiguities and wordings that lack clarity. Many questions are begged, just in the lead that I looked at intensively. This needs a thorough audit. Here are my queries about the lead:
  • Right at the top, the logic of this sentence is unclear: "The use of household income is often seen as the most dependable measure of personal wealth, as people tend to live in households that include other wage earners besides themselves."
  • "In 2003, the median annual household income according to the US Census Bureau was determined to be $43,389,[2] nearly identical to that of Canada which was roughly $41,510 (USD) in the year 2000." Remove "determined to be" (there's another one of these lower down). I can see that you've included Canadian info in response to comments that it was all too US-centric, but this is very odd here. Why just Canada? It's info from three years previously (and a whopping six years ago, anyway), so the "nearly identical" claim is a little wobbly.
  • Get rid of "in the year"—there are a number of them. We know that 2003 was a year.
  • Consider abbreviating after first spelling out "the United States". Make it concise and easy for our readers.
  • "The 2005 economic survey also found that"—Every extra sentence is "also"; it's stronger without.
  • A mean of "two income earners" and then "one income earner"? Surely to one decimal place.
  • "Among those in-between the relative extremes of the income strata a large and quite powerful section of households with moderately high middle class incomes[7] and an even larger number of households with moderately low incomes.[5]". Here and in numerous other sentences, a comma would help the readers. I know that many commas are a matter of personal preferences, but when you bump up multiword nominal groups, it's hard to read. I read it and wondered whether the comma should be after "between" or "strata". In any case, the sentence is ungrammatical.
  • Here, I can safely say that you must have a comma after either "44%" or "1990"—which is it? "While the median household income has increased 44% since 1990 it has decreased very slightly when considering inflation." Make it explicit in the first clause that you're comparing dollar values with inflation-equivalent values. Otherwise, the punters will be totally lost. It took me a few reads to realise what you meant. Insert "by" before "44%", I think.
  • "was determined to be $30,056 or $44,603 in 2003 dollars." Are you giving us a choice: either of those two amounts? No, so write "$30,056 ($44,603 in 2003 dollars)".
  • "In 2003, the median household income was, however, only $43,389, showing a slight decrease." Decrease since 1990, or when? And since the values here arise from a number of factors, you might make that point, to put in perspective this "slight decrease". Is this point suitable in the lead, anyway? Without supporting detail, it's kind of misleading. Tony 05:54, 20 August 2006 (UTC)