Chapter 3, Problem 63SE

Poverty Rates The following boxplot shows the poverty rates (the proportion of the population below the government’s official poverty level) for the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The regions are the West (W), South (S), NE (Northeast), and MW (Midwest). (Source: 2017 World Almanac)

a. List the regions from highest to lowest median poverty rate.

b. List the regions from lowest to highest interquartile range.

c. Do any of the regions have a state with an unusually low or an unusually high poverty rate? Explain.

d. Which region has the least amount of variability in poverty rate? Explain.

e. Why is the interquartile range a better measure of the variability for these data than the range is?