[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

($4M is a median unfortunately, couldn't find a mean quoted.)

As a median it is telling you that half the settlements were for $4m or less, and half were for $4M or more.

With one or two extremely high settlements, the mean average would be skewed.

Perhaps a more useful average than mean (in addition to median) would be the mode - the value of settlement that occurs most often.

If you insist on the mean, then some measure of spread is vital (at least the range, but the standard deviation might also be useful); I would suspect that the distribution of settlements is not Normal, but something like a Poisson, with a peak towards the lower settlement values.

By the way, official stats from a census use medians.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]