The median cannot tell you what either edge feels like.

The middle value is a useful anchor and it is silent about the extremes. It cannot tell you how bad things are at the bottom or how different life is at the top, and a policy built entirely around the median will often miss the people who most needed it.

Whenever you are given a middle figure, ask what is happening at the edges. Who is in the bottom tenth and what is their situation. That question changes decisions more often than any refinement of the average would, because the edges are usually where the urgent problems live.