Question: Suppose that you are a reporter for a newspaper whose editor has asked you to compare the hourly wages of carpenters, plumbers, electricians, and masons in your city. Since many of these workers are not union members, the wages vary considerably among individuals in the same trade.
a. What data should you gather, and how would you collect them? What statistics would you present in your article, and how would you calculate them? Assume that your newspaper is not intended for technical readers.
b. Suppose that you must submit your findings to a technical journal that requires statistical analysis of your data. If you want to determine whether or not the mean hourly wages are the same for all four trades, briefly describe how you would analyze the data. Assume that hourly wages in each trade are normally distributed and that the four variances are equal.