Statistics are popular because they have the power to put things we may only vaguely understand in the abstract sense into concrete terms. Numbers don't lie. But numbers can confuse. And numbers can even mislead.

Such seems to be the case with the statistics we have seen in the last two weeks regarding the income situation in Miner County. Specifically, the complexities arise when looking at two numbers.

Two weeks ago, we saw that our county per capita income, which is money earned per person each year, is very near the state average. Then last week, we saw that poverty is relatively high in Miner County in large part because our median household income in 1995 was nearly $6,000 dollars below South Dakota's median and almost $11,000 below the figure for the entire United States.

The per capita income in 1995 was $14,625, which was actually the low point in the 1990s. The median household income here that same year was $23,705.

How can both those per capita and per household figures be correct? Even having just two people in a household making the per capita amount adds up to more than the median household income. That doesn't even include children in the family, for whom the same per capita amount is made in the county each year. In other years when the per capita income was higher, the discrepancy would have been even greater.

Those two figures can be reconciled when we examine just what a median income is and how it might skew our perception of the statistics. The median income is not the average income of all families, but rather, the middle income of all families in the county when they are lined up from highest to lowest. The median of the numbers 2, 3, and 10 is 3, even though the average of those numbers is 5.

That example helps us begin to see the nature of the situation. If a third of the people are making 2, another third are making 3, and the final third are making 10, the median is low, while the average, upon which the per capita figure is based, is higher.

That's a simplified example, but it does show how the median is actually a better indicator of the financial state of our population. That's because it at least partially corrects for the disparity between the people with a common income and the people on the extreme high and low ends of the income spectrum.

That all sounds mathematically wonderful, but here's what it all means: The county as a whole does not make much less money per person than the entire state, but that money is not evenly distributed. A large percentage of our families live on a smaller percentage of the total income.

If $14,625 was made per PERSON in the county in 1995, and half of the FAMILIES in the county lived on less than $23,705, not only is our total income unproportionally divided, it is unusually unproportionally divided; evidently more so than in the state at large.

That is the crux of the poverty problem in Miner County.

It's also why there's hope for the future. A majority of people are not financially well off, but there is a certain percentage of the population who are. That at least means that there are people in the area who are able to make economic development possible. And economic development is as close a thing as there is to a key to moving that percentage of our population out of poverty.

Miner Notes was a weekly column written by Matt Laible for MCCR to promote understanding about the place we call home. All statistics and charts come from Dr. Daryl Hobbs at the University of Missouri. If you have questions or comments, please contact MCCR by calling 772-5153 or writing to P.O. Box 307 in Howard.