https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/12/what-truly-source-native-american-poverty-jason-d-hill/
The dire conditions under which Native Americans live in the United States are pitiful. Statistics grow dated by the month. According to the American Community Survey, one in three Native Americans live in poverty with a median income of around $23,000 per year.
Self-proclaimed experts on Native American poverty such as sociologist Beth Redbird point out that despite heavy investments in education, up to 80% of Native Americans move back to their rural communities. Given that poverty tends to be higher in rural areas, the poverty gap between Native Americans who live in rural areas and urban areas is larger than the white rural and urban gap. The conclusion is that poverty is not driven by the propensity of Native Americans to live in rural areas.
Redbird concludes that amazing things would happen if Native Americans had the same employment rates, occupations, levels of education, lived in the same geographic locations and were in the same types of white households as white Americans. She claims the payoff to education is not nearly as great as the payoff to jobs. In other words, if such conditions held, Native American poverty would decrease because poverty could be reduced for the Indian-only population by nearly 20% with employment.
She cites the abysmal failures of Native Americans to address their own economic development through tribal gaming and energy. Reports from the census show that when tribes started gaming establishments or energy projects that poverty rates did not decrease, and that few lasting jobs were created. In 2015 alone, casinos created about only 25 jobs, while energy had hardly any effect on reservations with more than 2,000 residents on average.
The solution? Redbird wants tribes to invest in a variety of job initiatives and to diversify economic opportunities. This will require federal negotiations and, Redbird admits, “Indians don’t have the highest trust in federal policy.”
Let us pause here and state the obvious. Autonomy, sovereignty and self-determination have simply not worked for American Indians. Their self-determination and alleged autonomy really rest on one set of collective entitlements after another to preserve their distinct tribal heritages to the detriment of economic growth and well-being. Even Redbird admits that economic well-being at the local level might look different for a tribe in Wyoming versus one in California—all of which lead to a variety of outcomes.