MOUNTAIN LAKES, NJ, March 25 -- Are knowledge workers -- the high-skill producers of today's economy -- falling into a wealth-gap trap: many getting either rich or poor, with fewer doing just okay? This will be the subject of a study planned by New Jersey think tank EraNova Institute (www.eranova.com).

The study comes on the heels of a straw poll conducted by EraNova over the past seven days. Knowledge workers were asked to rate themselves as currently POOR (not earning enough to pay the bills), MIDDLE (earning enough to get by), or RICH (earning enough to save and splurge). "A surprise to me," says EraNova's director, Richard W. Samson, "is the large size of both the rich and poor categories. I would have expected a larger middle."

With 162 people responding, the results are --

• 27.8%: POOR
• 46.9% MIDDLE
• 25.3%: RICH

"More than one in four are telling us they're not making enough to live on," says Samson. "Are we moving toward a rich-poor economy, in knowledge work as well as society as a whole?" EraNova's formal study will investigate whether the wealth gap is increasing among the highly educated in the U.S., as it has been among the general population. If it is, then changes of many types will be indicated -- in social policy, education, business management, and career pursuit by individuals.

"The prevaling assumption," says Samson, "is that higher-level skills will fix our employment problems. If you've been laid off, just upgrade yourself at a community college or grad school. But what if that assumption's wrong? What if, as many high-tech people with PhD's are telling us, there's a wealth gap no matter what your skill level?"

A widening knowledge-worker wealth gap, if confirmed by the EraNova study, may be one result of "off-peopling," a term Samson coined to call attention to human consequences of today's automation. Off-peopling, now gaining notice in the technical press, affects employment much more strongly than offshoring or outsourcing. 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.

The study will be managed by EraNova's research director, Anthony Spina. Holding a PhD in Human & Organizational Systems, Spina is a former research manager for AT&T, and lectures on business and social change. With an advisory panel drawn from universities, corporations, and professional associations, EraNova will also seek collaboration with the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The straw poll remains active on a blog hosted by EraNova, "Automatic Abundance" -- http://www.eranova.com/aa.html

Samson, a specialist on the mind and technology, 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). His identification of an emerging "Hyper-Human Economy" was selected by the World Future Society as the number-one forecast in their "Outlook 2005."

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