Here's the data from 2018.

https://authorsguild.org/news/six-takeaways-from-the-authors...

Median income was $3100 which is greater than the $3000 average award from the Anthropic settlement.

https://www.npr.org/2025/09/05/nx-s1-5529404/anthropic-settl...

But yes, one set of data is from 7-8 years ago, the other figure is from a few weeks ago. And median and average don't mean the same thing. And it's unclear how the population from the Author's Guild survey maps to the plaintiff class from the Anthropic settlement.

But it seems we're in the same ballpark.