Study: Natives make social, economic gains

By Kathy Helms
Diné Bureau

FORT DEFIANCE — Native Americans living on reservations with and without gaming operations made considerable social and economic gains in the last decade, with tribal self-determination contributing much to the success.

According to a study by the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, on average, Indian incomes grew by 36 percent three times the national average across all reservations where tribes had gaming.

The study, "American Indians on Reservations: A Databook of Socioeconomic Change Between the 1990 and 2000 Censuses," was released Jan. 6. It compared Census data from 1990 to 2000 and showed improvements in income per capita, poverty and unemployment rates.

The study also found housing overcrowding decreased during the decade, particularly in areas without gaming, and the percentage of Native people living in homes with plumbing increased in both gaming and non-gaming areas.

In 2000, 175,000 Indians lived on the Navajo Reservation, nearly three times the number living on all other reservations without gaming and 12 times that of the next largest reservation, according to the study.

The size of the Navajo Nation, which did not have gaming in the 1990s, tends to pull all averages with it. Thus, the study presents data summaries that both include and exclude the Navajo Nation and the Oklahoma Tribal Statistical Areas (OTSAs).

Harvard University researchers said the gains made by Native Americans came despite low levels of per capita federal spending and stagnation of federal spending on Indian populations during the past two decades. They concluded the socioeconomic gains across Indian America reflect a broader policy of Indian self-government.

"The reasons are to be found in the fact that self-rule brings decision-making home, and local decision makers are held more accountable to local needs, conditions and cultures than outsiders," they said.

The study's findings support prior research showing that "self-rule to tribes can bring, and has brought, improvements in program efficiency, enterprise competency, and socioeconomic conditions."

But researchers said improvement did not eliminate the socioeconomic disparities between Native people and other Americans. They noted that despite recent gains, reservation-based Indians' per capita incomes remained little more than one third of the U.S. average.

Even if incomes were to grow steadily at their 1990's pace from here on out, the gap would not close for 55 years, they said.

Over 30 years, the inflation-adjusted per capita income of Indians living on reservations grew by 83 percent (compared to 64 percent for the U.S. population as a whole). The growth in real per capita incomes in the 1970's was associated with increases in federal spending, and stagnation in the 1980's was associated with declines. Federal spending has been in stagnation ever since on a number of major Indian programs, researchers said.

"Federal funding is so important, especially in rural, isolated areas of Indian country where little economic development exists," said Chester Carl, chairman of the National American Indian Housing Council (NAIHC). Carl is also chief executive officer of Navajo Housing Authority.

"With the policy shift to self-determination, tribes are becoming more efficient in using those diminishing dollars in order to effectively accomplish results, as the study shows," he said.

Creation of the Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Act of 1996 (NAHASDA), finally gave tribes control over how their housing dollars would best be spent to fit the needs of their people. But federal funding under NAHASDA, which supports 562 federally recognized tribes, has been stagnant for the last five years, Carl said.

"That is not enough for all the tribes in the U.S. to meet the housing needs, even with smart leveraging of basic funds to expand their resources," he said. "And despite improvements in overcrowding rates in the past decade, Native Americans are three times more likely to live in overcrowded homes than other Americans. They are also more likely to lack sewage and water systems, telephone lines and electricity."

NAIHC Executive Director Gary L. Gordon said, "The findings in this study provide objective confirmation of what we've been saying: Indian country is best suited to determine how to meet the housing needs of tribal members and, given adequate resources, can and will continue do so."

The report can be seen at the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development's Web site at www.ksg.harvard.edu/hpaied. Data from the study indicate although substantial gaps remain between America's Native population and the rest of the nation, rapid economic development is taking place among gaming and non-gaming tribes alike.

From 1990 to 2000, family poverty rates dropped by seven percentage points or more in non-gaming areas, and by about 10 percentage points in gaming areas. U.S. family poverty dropped eight-tenths of a percentage point.

Unemployment rates dropped by about 2.5 percentage points in non-gaming areas and by more than five percentage points in gaming areas. U.S. unemployment dropped by half a percentage point.