Endeavor's Neat Numbers

6.25

Pennsylvania's 420,000 minimum wage earners will get a raise on Jan. 1. The minimum wage goes to $6.25 per hour; it's $5.15 currently. A second increase takes effect on July 1, 2007, boosting the minimum wage to $7.15. Small businesses operating with 10 or fewer full-time employees have an expanded time frame to raise their minimum wages. For them, the rate will increase to $5.65 on Jan. 1, to $6.65 on July 1, 2007, and to the $7.15 rate by July 1, 2008.

70

Almost 70 percent of Americans age 18 and older have access to the Internet. The figure is 74 percent for whites and 61 percent for African-Americans.

15

School students learn more and perform better in a cooler classroom. A Danish researcher set up an experiment involving testing in a room with a temperature of 78, and then administered a test with the same degree of difficulty in a 68-degree room. The students in the latter room scored 15 percent higher. Similar results, measured by productivity, were reported in workplaces at varying temperatures.

4

There's a heroin epidemic and plenty of other drug abuse in Elk County. Drug abuse is the main factor in this jarring declaration from Bill Orzechowski, a long-time employee of the Office of Human Services:

"Elk County has the highest death rate in Pennsylvania in people ages 20 to 25. It is four times the death rate of other areas in the state. For 15- to 19- year-olds, Elk County is three times higher the average death rate in the state."

To open the public's eyes to the crisis, Orzechowski and other members of the Elk County Drug and Alcohol Consortium are planning a series of "Reality Tours" later this year. Participants will experience the life of a drug addict, from financial stresses and law enforcement to overdoses, withdrawal, imprisonment and, in the end, a funeral scene. Heroin addiction is very serious, but Elk County is also seeing a spike in the abuse of over-thecounter and prescription medication. Two recovering heroin addicts who are helping the consortium estimated that an estimated 10,000 hits of heroin per week were coming into Elk County.

6,000

The Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School, open since 2000, has passed the 6,000- student milestone. The school offers an Internet-based curriculum for grades five through 12. Every student has a personal guidance counselor. The school offers field trips where students can meet each other in person. They also communicate on the Internet through group chat, text and group projects during class periods. Lessons range from courses similar to those found in traditional Pennsylvania schools, to college-credit classes in higher grades. Information on the school can be found at www.pacyber.org .

7

The average commute to work for Americans has risen by seven minutes since 2000. The typival commuter now rises at 6:30 a.m. More older women than ever are commuting and the number of people commuting alone has also risen, despite the promotion of car-pooling.

66

As medical bills and health insurance rates rise at more than double the rate of inflation, 66 percent of Americans now favor universal, government-paid health care.

300

America cruised past the 300 million population milestone this week, unleashing a wave of statistics measuring how things have changed since we passed 200 million in 1967. Average life expectancy is 77.8 years now; it was 70.5 then. The number of one-person households has gone from 15.5 percent then to 26.6 percent now. Registered motor vehicles numbered 98.9 million then; today it's 237.2 million.

200

Another 200 workers will lose their jobs at Eljer Plumbingware in Ford City. "It shows us where corporate America is going," said Armstrong County Commissioner Rich Fink.