Wikidata:Property proposal/Median household income

median household income edit

Originally proposed at Wikidata:Property proposal/Place

Done: median household income (P11899) (Talk and documentation)

Description	median of the household income (cumulated salaries etc.) of a specific place, such as city, state, country
Represents	household income (Q1591167)
Data type	Quantity
Domain	item
Allowed values	>$0
Allowed units	currency units (usually US-Dollars or local currency)
Example 1	United States of America (Q30) → $64,994
Example 2	California (Q99) → $78,672
Example 3	Detroit (Q12439) → $32,498
Robot and gadget jobs	I will add the data for the median household income for all cities, counties and states in the USA if item is created, using QuickStatements.
See also	median income (P3529) (see description below)

Motivation edit

The median household income is a very good indicator for the characteristics of the social standard and the standard of living of a city or county, especially if compared to the number of the state or whole country. It is reasonable information besides the mean per capita income and the mean household income, as those arithmetial average numbers can be influenced by individuals with very high income, which is not the case if a median is used.

For many countries, this data is retrieved by government-run programs with a very reliable data base, such as the 5-year American Community Survey that analyzes every eighth individual in a given 5-year timespan. The data of the 2016-2020 survey was recently published and can be used for Wikidata, and with having the data on Wikidata, we can use them in the Wikipedia articles.

Important: We already have median income (P3529). This property has an issue, as its title suggests to refer to the median income per individual, whereas the description rather refers to the median household income (and suggesting that both numbers can be mixed, which I do not consider very reasonable, as there's an obvious difference between the median per capita income and the median household income). As the median income (P3529) is currently used only 50 times, I would like to analyze each usage of that property once this proposal was realized, so after that we will have proper statements clearly either referring to the median per capita income or the median household income. Thanks, Yellowcard (talk) 06:38, 27 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion edit

Comment It sounds like it would be much better to fix up median income (P3529) - and individual vs household values could be distinguished with a qualifier such as applies to part (P518) household (Q259059). ArthurPSmith (talk) 14:59, 28 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@ArthurPSmith: That could be an alternative. I think it is two different approaches, what are the pros and cons for using the same property for different kind of data compared to using two different properties? Regards, Yellowcard (talk) 06:21, 29 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Further thinking about this, I believe that there will be the permanent uncertainty whether the data refers to median income per person, per household, per family, unless clearly defined in the property description. Not everyone adding statements will use the clarifying qualifier. Therefore, if there are no big disadvantages of using two separated properties, I still vote for this proposal, but of course I stay open for other approaches. Yellowcard (talk) 07:15, 29 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
As a non-WD-speaker I'm wondering whether the use of a qualifier could be obligatory? --G-41614 (talk) 13:29, 3 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@G-41614 We could use constraints, but this would not prevent anybody technically from adding statements without this qualifier. There would be a symbol popping up and the item would show up in daily "Constraint Violation Reports", but realistically no one is capable to fix this issue if someone adds lots of data without this specifying qualifier.

On the other hand, I do not really see a disadvantage of a new property, so we clearly have "median income per person" and "median income per household", without any risk of confusion. Best regards, Yellowcard (talk) 06:24, 4 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I Support this property as is. If we store a lot of values like this because we want to have yearly values storing them in their own property is cheaper than using a qualifer for it. ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 11:22, 5 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@ZI Jony, Bean49, ChristianKl, Yellowcard, G-41614, ArthurPSmith: median household income (P11899)

Done. Good contributions, Ederporto (talk) 07:00, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]