median

A four-panel comic. A man in a dark suit and round sunglasses rushes up to a plain-looking woman, calling "Ma'am! Ma'am!" He tells her she is exactly in the middle for retirement savings—half the country has more, half has less—so she is "the median citizen." He says he's from the government and, with an election coming up, hands her a briefcase containing one million dollars. The confused woman just says "Okay...? So...?" In the final panel he opens the briefcase full of stacked cash and says, "I need you to deposit it in your bank account and pretend you never saw me"—secretly bribing the single median person so the country's median (and thus reported typical) wealth shoots up. Below, a mock newspaper headline reads "MEDIAN AMERICAN IS NOW MILLIONAIRE," with a tiny line graph and a subhead noting "Math errors continue downward." The votey (bonus panel) shows a handwritten note reading "Average American hates Median American."