Stat of the Week Winner: August 10 – 16 2013

This week there were 5 nominations.

We’re awarding Nathaniel Wilson’s nomination of the NZ Herald‘s “complete ignorance of how averages work”:

Can I please nominate the New Zealand Herald, for displaying a complete ignorance of how averages work?

“Aucklanders’ rates bills have arrived in letterboxes and the figures
have come as a shock to some homeowers who have seen rises of 10 per
cent – despite the council promising an average increase of 2.9 per
cent.”

Because averages and maximums are not the same thing.

Thomas posted more about that story:

Obviously there’s nothing inconsistent about the average being 2.9% and the maximum being 10%. NZ’s average income is about $48000, but I take home somewhat more than that, and the CEO of Fonterra makes a whole lot more, and he may well not be the maximum. The average and the maximum are different. That’s not a shock.

The other point, that our nominator doesn’t make, is that rate increases are capped at 10%, and that all the people who hit the cap last year already knew that they would be seeing an increase this year, and roughly how much it would be. I know this because I live in Onehunga, where property values have gone up quite a lot, and I’m one of the people with a large rate increase. Since I read the rates notice I received last year I’m not at all shocked. I don’t have to say whether I’m happy or not, but it certainly wasn’t a surprise.

Congratulations Nathaniel, and thank you for the other nominations. Please keep them coming in!