Chico Taxpayers Association

Residents: 87,671

Employees: 471

Residents per employee: 186

Average wages: $67,645

Average retirement & health cost: $31,940

Total wages: $31,860,950

Total retirement & health cost: $15,043,727

I also like to look at the US Census “Quick Facts” website, here’s the page for Chico:

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/06/0613014.html

There you’ll see, it looks like the latest figure for median household income has actually gone up since the last time I checked – it used to be around $38,000, now they have it listed at about $42,000. Well, whoop – eee.  Above you see the “average” wage for a city of Chico worker listed at $67,645.

I know, “median,” and “average” are two different things. “Median” is funny – you stack up the numbers – which may be wildly different from each other, or may be very much the same – from most to least, and then you pick the number that is physically dead center in the middle. What does that mean? And “average” – you add up a stack of numbers, which, again, may be very similar or may be wildly different, and then you divide by the number of numbers. Again, what does that mean? 

Excuse me, I don’t even want to get started on “mean.”

Anyway, when I researched this matter, I found a salary study that showed “average” and “median” salary figures for Phoenix, Arizona. These figures were within a few dollars of each other. Don’t ask me how that works. But, I’m going to assume that the figures are similar here, and I’m going to compare the “average” salary I got for public workers with the “median” salary I got for the general public. There’s a gap of about $25,000. 

At this moment, I’d like to make it known to any of you city of Chico workers out there, I’m available for lunch most weekdays.  I have very inexpensive tastes – I like restaurants on wheels. In fact, since you’ll be paying, I could be persuaded to come out to the Farmer’s Market some Saturday morning for a quick tamale. 

I can’t be bought, but I could be adopted.