Average Joe

For other uses, see Average Joe (disambiguation).

The terms average Joe, ordinary Joe, regular Joe, Joe Sixpack, Joe Lunchbucket, Joe Snuffy, Joe Blow, Joe Schmoe (for males), and ordinary Jane, average Jane, and plain Jane (for females), are used primarily in North America to refer to a completely average person, typically an average American. It can be used both to give the image of a hypothetical "completely average person" or to describe an existing person. Parallel terms in other languages for local equivalents exist worldwide.

Historically, there have been several attempts at answering who exactly is the average American. For example, the Saturday Evening Post and The Washington Post have attempted to answer the question. Both articles agreed that the average American is a white Christian female, who is part of a couple, and is politically independent.[1][2] Admittedly, there are problems with this answer. In 2001, for example, no single household arrangement constituted more than 30% of total households. Married couples with no children were the most common constituting 28.7% of households. It would nonetheless be inaccurate to state that the average American lives in a childless couple arrangement as 71.3% do not.[3]

Today, statistics by the United States Department of Commerce provide information regarding the societal attributes of those who may be referred to as being "average". While some individual attributes are easily identified as being average, such as the median income, other characteristics, such as family arrangements, may not be identified as being average. In terms of social class, the average American may be described as either being middle class,[4] or working class.[5] As social classes lack distinct boundaries the average American may have a status in the area where the lower middle and upper working class overlap.[6]

"Average Joes" are common fodder for characters in television or movies, comics, novels, or radio dramas. On television, examples of "average Joes" include Doug Heffernan (King of Queens), Alan Harper (Two and a Half Men) and Homer Simpson (The Simpsons). In the film Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, the protagonist, Peter, owns a gym for those who do not want an intensive workout, and the patrons of the gym are all somewhat overweight. The gym is named Average Joe's Gymnasium.[7] In real life, as chronicled in his bestseller The Average American: The Extraordinary Search for the Nation's Most Ordinary Citizen, Kevin O'Keefe successfully completed a nationwide search for the person who was the most statistically average in the United States during a multi-year span starting in 2000. Newsweek proclaimed of the book, "The journey toward run-of-the-mill has never been so remarkable."

  1. ^ Bump, Philip (23 October 2021). "Analysis | This is what the average American looks like in 2018". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 17 August 2023.
  2. ^ Nilsson, Jeff (7 December 2021). "Who, Exactly, Is the 'Average American'?". The Saturday Evening Post. Retrieved 17 August 2023.
  3. ^ Williams, Brian; Stacey C. Sawyer; Carl M. Wahlstrom (2005). Marriages, Families & Intimate Relationships. Boston, MA: Pearson. ISBN 0-205-36674-0.
  4. ^ "The Christian Science Monitor on What is Middle Class". The Christian Science Monitor. 10 May 2005. Retrieved 11 September 2006.
  5. ^ Vanneman, Reeve; Lynn Weber Cannon (1988). The American Perception of Class. New York, NY: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-097333-1.
  6. ^ Thompson, William; Joseph Hickey (2005). Society in Focus. Boston, MA: Pearson. ISBN 0-205-41365-X.
  7. ^ "Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004)". IMDb.