July 7, 2014

Stat of the Week Competition: July 5 – 11 2014

Each week, we would like to invite readers of Stats Chat to submit nominations for our Stat of the Week competition and be in with the chance to win an iTunes voucher.

Here’s how it works:

  • Anyone may add a comment on this post to nominate their Stat of the Week candidate before midday Friday July 11 2014.
  • Statistics can be bad, exemplary or fascinating.
  • The statistic must be in the NZ media during the period of July 5 – 11 2014 inclusive.
  • Quote the statistic, when and where it was published and tell us why it should be our Stat of the Week.

Next Monday at midday we’ll announce the winner of this week’s Stat of the Week competition, and start a new one.

The fine print:

  • Judging will be conducted by the blog moderator in liaison with staff at the Department of Statistics, The University of Auckland.
  • The judges’ decision will be final.
  • The judges can decide not to award a prize if they do not believe a suitable statistic has been posted in the preceeding week.
  • Only the first nomination of any individual example of a statistic used in the NZ media will qualify for the competition.
  • Individual posts on Stats Chat are just the opinions of their authors, who can criticise anyone who they feel deserves it, but the Stat of the Week award involves the Department of Statistics more officially. For that reason, we will not award Stat of the Week for a statistic coming from anyone at the University of Auckland outside the Statistics department. You can still nominate and discuss them, but the nomination won’t be eligible for the prize.
  • Employees (other than student employees) of the Statistics department at the University of Auckland are not eligible to win.
  • The person posting the winning entry will receive a $20 iTunes voucher.
  • The blog moderator will contact the winner via their notified email address and advise the details of the $20 iTunes voucher to that same email address.
  • The competition will commence Monday 8 August 2011 and continue until cancellation is notified on the blog.
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Rachel Cunliffe is the co-director of CensusAtSchool and currently consults for the Department of Statistics. Her interests include statistical literacy, social media and blogging. See all posts by Rachel Cunliffe »

Nominations

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    Statistic: Richard Prebble, the author of the ACT Party email “The Letter”:

    On *medium income*, and the *medium household*

    “Cunliffe says households in poverty have less than 60 percent of the medium income after housing costs. If Bill Gates came to live in New Zealand, the medium income of the country would rise and, according to that logic, more children would be in poverty. The poverty measure also ignores non-cash transfers. Those non-cash transfers, like health and education, are real and substantial. Cash them up and many of those in “poverty” are on higher incomes than the medium household.
    Source: The Letter – 7 July 2014: Election year conference
    Date: 7 July 2014 by email, 8 July online

    Invents a statistic that doesn’t exist, and repeatedly uses it in a way that doesn’t make sense. And even if median income and median household were meant, they’re still used wrong!

    The ACT Letter is written by Richard Prebble, a formed government minister and party leader, no just some random :-)

    10 years ago