EraNova Institute - 142 Morris Avenue - Mountain Lakes, NJ 07046 - 973-335-3699

RELEASE ON RECEIPT - March 18, 2005
CONTACT: Dick Samson - (973) 335-3699 - dicksamson@eranova.com

Knowledge Workers -- The New Working Poor?

Online Poll, Offered by EraNova Think Tank, Will Calibrate Income Levels of Highly-Trained Workers

MOUNTAIN LAKES, NJ, March 18 -- Are "knowledge workers" -- the much-ballyhooed, high-skill producers of today's economy -- falling into the ranks of the working poor? While this may seem counter-intuitive in an improving economy, think tank EraNova Institute says it appears to be happening. The development is substantiated, EraNova says, by government statistics and its own observations.

To calibrate and better understand the trend, EraNova announced today an online straw poll. It is designed to gather broad input from technical personnel, managers, creative people, and others who make their living primarily through mental skill and communication. The interactive straw poll is available on a blog hosted by EraNova, "Automatic Abundance" -- http://www.eranova.com/aa.html

The straw poll lets knowledge workers tell anonymously how they're currently doing, by pigeonholing themselves into one of three categories:

• KNOWLEDGE-WORKING POOR (Not earning enough to pay the bills)
• KNOWLEDGE-WORKING MIDDLE (Earning enough to get by)
• KNOWLEDGE-WORKING RICH (Earning enough to save and splurge)

After taking the straw poll, visitors may view total responses to date, and post comments (anonymously or with their names). They may also read an article, "Knowledge Workers -- The New Working Poor?" that tells of low-paid, extremely qualified people, including some with PhD's, who have come to EraNova's attention.

The straw poll "will give us some preliminary numbers, expand our understanding of who's affected, and provide a basis for more investigation," says Richard W. Samson, EraNova's director. He points to a U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics study, published in 2002, indicating that more than 500,000 American college graduates earn incomes below the poverty line. In Samson's view, the number of "knowledge-working poor" could be much higher, "because, unlike blue-collar workers who may declare themselves 'unemployed,' the knowledge workers we know shun that appellation. They're never 'unemployed.' They're 'contractors' seeking gigs, or 'business owners' seeking clients." Many, he reports, are taking in only a few thousand dollars a year. "They're in fact 'working poor' though trying to give the appearance of doing better. And they're spending down their assets to keep afloat."

The widespread rise of the knowledge-working poor, if confirmed, is one result of "off-peopling," a term Samson coined to call attention to human consequences of automation, which affects employment much more strongly than offshoring. While a widening wealth gap has been viewed with alarm by many economists, highly-skilled knowledge workers have been considered relatively immune to the squeeze on the middle class. Confirmation of a knowledge-worker income squeeze could call many popular economic fixes, such as high-tech skill training, into question.

A specialist on the mind and technology, Samson has published several books and served as consultant to Cisco Systems, AT&T, IBM, and others. His most recent book is "MIND OVER TECHNOLOGY: Coming Out On Top as a Wired World Starts to Run On Automatic" (Booksurge Publishing). He is currently working on a book that offers 10 "hyper-human tactics" for doing well in spite of off-peopling and income challenges. His identification of an emerging "Hyper-Human Economy" was selected by the World Future Society as the number-one forecast in their "Outlook 2005."

# # #