Mean vs median: meaning of skew

in general (though not necessarily), if the median is lower then the mean, you have major outliers in the high end of the distribution, and if the mean is lower then median you have major outliers in the low end.

In the case of income distribution for example, I don't think there's any country where the mean income is lower then the median, because the income distribution always looks like a very large amount of poor and middle class people with a very small super-rich minority, hence major outliers on the high end.

A society where the median is higher than the mean would consist of a very large middle class, no extreme wealth, and a small and extremely poor minority.

-- https://www.quora.com/What-does-it-indicate-about-a-data-set-if-the-mean-is-lower-than-the-median-I-just-want-some-analysis-on-what-sort-of-conclusions-one-can-draw-about-a-data-set-based-on-its-mean-and-median-values/answer/Murat-Keyder