In a town of 50 people, one earns five million a year and the other 49 each earn thirty thousand. Which measure describes the middle better?

1. The single very large salary drags the mean well above what almost everyone earns. 2. The median simply picks the middle value once the salaries are sorted. 3. That middle value is thirty thousand, which matches what 49 of the 50 people actually earn. 4. So the median gives a better sense of the middle when an outlier like this is present. _Source: OpenStax High School Statistics (CC BY 4.0), Ch 2 "Descriptive Statistics" and Ch 3 "Probability Topics", section 2.5 Measures of the Center of the Data_