Kerning

It used to be, that you could put a command for kerning in the menu bar.  I've looked, and there're increase kerning and decrease kerning buttons, but they do nothing!  I've looked in the properties, and there's nothing in there for kerning.  I know I can grab the arrow and increase or decrease, but I used to be able to see what the percentage is.  it is absolutely not in properties.  Sometimes I have to do pieces of text separately, and I'd like to know what the percentage is so I can be consistant.