Mean

The mean is the arithmetic average. For enforcement penalties it is a poor summary, because the distribution is extremely right-skewed and a single billion-dollar settlement moves it more than a hundred typical ones.

data and analysis · updated 2026-09-08

See also

• Median — The median is the middle value of a sorted set. This site reports median penalties rather than mean penalties because a handful of…
• Skew — Skew describes the asymmetry of a distribution. Enforcement penalties are heavily right-skewed: most are modest, and a few are eno…

Terms that refer here

Median

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