Here's my two cents worth. First, there is an underlying skew towards higher income because (a) people near the high income will have such exceeding high income that it pulls up the average figure and (b) median income is skewed towards to the "higher" income because there is no negative income. Still (b) is less skewed and would be more useful as a comparator . I think the age cut-off is about 60, e.g., 60 and above with no income is considered retired, and assuming the median (?) starting work age is 20, then the "average" working age is about 40 years old and on "average", there is about 2 people working per household, making it about 40 years combined job experience. So with 40 years combined job experience, the median monthly income per household will be around 5k. Like a true statistician, I confess half of the "averages" are gut feels which can have be off from the actuals. I guess the bottomline is that statistics are made for policy makers and it is hard to apply it for the individuals. (And for those who are into surveys and want to factor in my personal bias, my household income is in the top quartile.)