It’s only that high if you narrow the scope to only full-time and employed for the whole year. This neglects how much (or maybe rather how little) the us values a large proportion of its labor. I didn’t check the math on the percentage they gave, but it’s at least in the right ballpark from some very rough napkin math- 60% of below median is 30% of total, and if we make a not amazing assumption that the “curve” of earnings is linear, then we can just shift the median by the given 30%, which if you shift up from 47960 you get 68.5k, or if you shift down from 60070 you get 42k.
It’s only that high if you narrow the scope to only full-time and employed for the whole year. This neglects how much (or maybe rather how little) the us values a large proportion of its labor. I didn’t check the math on the percentage they gave, but it’s at least in the right ballpark from some very rough napkin math- 60% of below median is 30% of total, and if we make a not amazing assumption that the “curve” of earnings is linear, then we can just shift the median by the given 30%, which if you shift up from 47960 you get 68.5k, or if you shift down from 60070 you get 42k.