INDICATORS

OREN DORELL, USA TODAY - Tighter airport security and higher gas prices
appear to be boosting Amtrak ridership in the Northeast, the South and
Midwest. Trains in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New England saw
double-digit jumps in ridership. Routes in the West saw the smallest
increases, and trains in the Louisiana area had drops because of
Hurricane Katrina. Amtrak, which serves a daily average of 69,000 riders
on 300 trains, saw total ridership increase just over 1% in fiscal year
2006, which ended Sept. 30. . . Ridership on the Acela - Metroliner, the
busiest trains of all running from Washington, D.C., to Boston, grew by
8.8%. The line had 2,668,174 riders in 2006, or 589 more passengers a
day. The greatest growth rates occurred among the 23 short-distance
routes where states contribute money to Amtrak and dictate routes.
Ridership on long routes dropped 1.3% mostly because of
"less-than-acceptable on-time performance," Romero said. Worst was the
Sunset Limited, from Orlando to Los Angeles, with a 36% drop after
damages from Katrina and Rita.

http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/UsatodaycomNation-TopStories/
~3/55377375/2006-11-28-amtrak-ridership_x.htm

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A family of three must have earned less than $15,577 in 2005 to be
considered poor.

37 million people in America live below the poverty line, about the
entire population of California.

43 percent of the poor live in "deep poverty" ? half the poverty line.
The highest percentage living in "deep poverty" since the Census
Department began recording this data in 1975.

35 million Americans went without food in 2005. This year, the USDA
changed the official classification of this growing population from
"food insecure with hunger" to "very low food security." The number of
hungry Americans is nearly equal in size to the combined populations of
Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Montana,
Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon,
South Dakota, Vermont and West Virginia.

In 2004, 13 million children, or 17.8 percent were poor.

http://www.ActionLA.org

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RICHEST 2% HAVE HALF THE WORLD'S WEALTH

FINANCIAL TIMES - Personal wealth is distributed so unevenly across the
world that the richest two per cent of adults own more than 50 per cent
of the world's assets while the poorest half hold only 1 per cent of
wealth. A survey shows that middle-income countries with high growth
rates still have a long way to go before they have a hope of catching up
with the levels of prosperity of the richest. Adults with more than
$2,200 of assets were in the top half of the global wealth league table,
while those with more than $61,000 were in the top 10 per cent,
according to the data from the World Institute fpr Development Economics
Research of the United Nations University. To belong to the top 1 per
cent of the world's wealthiest adults you would need more than $500,000,
something that 37m adults have achieved. . . Almost 90 per cent of the
world's wealth is held in North America, Europe and high-income Asian
and Pacific countries, such as Japan and Australia.
While North America has 6 per cent of the world's adult population, it
accounts for 34 per cent of household wealth. The concentration of
wealth in different countries varies considerably, with the top 10 per
cent in the US holding 70 per cent of the country's wealth, compared
with 61 per cent in France, 56 per cent in the UK, 44 per cent in
Germany and 39 per cent in Japan.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/41470ec0-845b-11db-87e0-0000779e2340.html

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HISTORY NOT A BAD MAJOR FOR INCOME IF YOU CAN WAIT TEN YEARS

ROBERT, AHA BLOG - Money recently reported that the history majors from
the class of 2006 earned an average of $33,071 (a 4.2 increase over the
year before). That was more than 5 percent above the average for
students who majored in the fields of English, sociology, and
psychology.

Of course, a student strictly interested in earnings will probably find
the average starting salaries for students with professional degrees
more appealing. Business majors earned an average of almost 25 percent
more out of college than history majors, and the salaries for students
with science and engineering degrees were significantly higher.

These differences seem to diminish a bit over time. According to a new
federal survey of college graduates who received their baccalaureate
degrees in the 1992–93 academic year, history majors were earning an
average of $54,662 ten years after the degree. That was just $1,000 less
than the average for all fields, and well above the average of for those
who majored in one of the other humanities ($48,162) or education
($39,424).

The gap in average salaries between men and women who majored in history
is rather troubling, however. Men reported an average salary of $62,662,
while female history majors reported an average of just $42,364. That 48
percent gap is almost twice the difference for graduates from other
humanities fields. And unlike students in most of the other fields, the
gap did not really narrow when we filter the data down to graduates with
full-time jobs.

http://hnn.us/roundup/14.html#32479

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GENDER WAGE GAP CLOSING BECAUSE MEN ARE LOSING GROUND

DENVER POST - Women are closing in on men when it comes to wages, but
not for the reasons anticipated . . . The pay gap has been narrowing not
because women have made great strides, labor experts say, but because
men's wages are eroding. The disparity in median hourly pay between men
and women narrowed to 18.3 percent in August from 21.5 percent five
years earlier, according to census figures. In fact, the U.S. Labor
Department noted recently that the wage differential in 2005 was the
smallest since the department began tracking it 33 years ago, when it
was 36.9 percent.

Even when men's and women's work patterns are taken into account - men
tend to work more hours - the pay gap is narrowing. The difference
between men's and women's median annual earnings shrank from 26.3
percent to 23 percent between 2000 and 2005, with women earning an
average $31,858 and men $41,386..

http://www.denverpost.com/ci_4766864?source=rss

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