Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics

Posted on | October 1, 2009 |

Mary Ann Miller

Okay, I’ll admit that my staff gave me my own box of red pens because I like to edit documents.  It’s true that I have been called the queen of the hyphen.  Yes, someone once told me she never saw anyone work so hard not to end a sentence in a preposition in a Christmas letter.  Throw in the fact that I have always scored higher on the math portion of exams and you will understand why the meaningless use of statistics just drives me nuts!

Statistics - raw numbers, averages, percentages - have no meaning without context.  Two perfect examples came to my desk this week.  The first was a poll of association members asking how much they budgeted for staff training in the aggregate.  There was no cross referencing for the staff size.  So if I spend $5k and you spend $2k, which of us invests more in staff training?

Who knows?!

If I have 10 FTEs, I’m spending $500 per person.  Without knowing if you have three FTEs or 12, I have no basis of comparison.

The second was an article comparing the per-capita-income growth in various metro areas.  Once again, we may be comparing apples to oranges.  After all, the per-capita income of my household is much higher than someone bringing home the same paycheck to her two young children.  Perhaps the study took demographics into account - an influx of retirees or a baby boom in an area will skew results - but it was never mentioned in the article.  Instead, people will assume we’re doing much worse than other areas.

Put me down as another vote for more math education.

Mary Ann Miller is the President/CEO of the Tempe Chamber of Commerce

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