the following graph is an example for income distributionthe preceding image shows an example of income distribution data for exampleat the th percentile we can say that of the data pointswhich represent people in americamake less than $ , yearand one percent make more than that converselyif you're one-percenteryou're making more than $ , year congratulationsbut if you're more typical median personthe th percentile defines the point at which half of the people are making less and half are making more than you arewhich is the definition of median the th percentile is the same thing as medianand that would be at $ , given this dataset soif you're making $ , year in the usyou are making exactly the median amount of income for the country you can see the problem of income distribution in the graph above things tend to be very concentrated toward the high end of the graphwhich is very big political problem right now in the country we'll see what happens with thatbut that' beyond the scope of this book that' percentiles in nutshell