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                                                               Welfare and Native Americans

(note: this is excerpted from the main welfare study. If conclusions seem too strong or do not seem to be backed up by data, it is probably because these explanations were given earlier in the paper.)

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    I then turned to look at Native Americans. I was initially intrigued by their high rate of single motherhood, only 54.4% of children were in 2 parent families in 1990 (72). Also, Native Americans offer an exciting research base because each tribe is geographically separate and, although certain general similarities exist, each tribe has different relationships with the local, state and federal government. This chart breaks down single mother rates by various tribes (the list is not exclusive) Chart 46 (72):

     If there are any of you people out there who still believe high rates of single mother hood are a result of 'sensitive cultural differences, which we must 'respect and cherish', I would love to hear you explain the above chart. Similarly, if there are of you 'Eugenics people' reading this then please tell me what genes are at play here. As we will see these difference appear to be directly caused by the degree of dependence and intrusiveness by the government. 

    In comparing this to Chart 18, 50% of black children were in a two parent family in 1990, which is just slightly less than the 54.4% for Native Americans. Some tribes have rates far below this. What I wanted to do was tabulate the total social spending per capita on each tribe, or even the percent of each tribe on welfare (which would strongly correlate with the number in poverty because welfare keeps people poor), and see the correlations to rates of single motherhood. But, I was unable to find this information. If anyone else knows where to get this please leave me a comment. 

    I did find a table that was quite interesting which showed the rates of never married women. This is a rough estimation of never married mothers, which may correlate strongly with welfare because welfare often creates them. Chart 47 (82): 

Percentage of Women Aged 15+ Who Were Never Married, 1990

    Compare Chart 47 with Chart 46. The higher rates of never married women roughly equivocate with poverty rates.

    I decided to investigate the Pine Ridge tribe first because they had the lowest percent of children living with two parents, 35.2% and the third highest rate of never married mothers. To my surprise - I swear I'm not making this up - one of the first things that popped up in my search was allegations of voter fraud! Some Republicans were crying foul over a close Senate race, one decided by only 524 votes, between Democrat Tim Johnson and Republican John Thune. The (conservative) National Review reports (73):

According to an Associated Press report, early on Wednesday morning, when 838 out of the state's 844 precincts had reported (99.3 percent of the total), Thune led Johnson by 166,588 to 165,639 votes. It was close, but Thune led by nearly 1,000 votes with just six precincts left to count.

One of those precincts made no real difference in the vote; the delay was the result of a mechanical problem in a county that had experienced no irregularities. That left the last five precincts, all in Shannon County [Pine Ridge Native Americans make up over 94.2% of Shannon county residents (77)], as Johnson's last hope of victory. And Shannon came through. Johnson won 91.4 percent of the county's vote — an unusually high percentage even in that overwhelmingly Democratic area — and pulled ahead as the last precinct was counted. 

 Still, Thune broadly hinted that something had gone terribly wrong on Election Day. "Are there questions that need to be answered about the outcome of this election?" he asked. "I believe there are. Did things happen that shouldn't have in some polling places around the state? I believe they did." (73)

    To be honest, I didn't find the (conservative) National Review's findings very convincing. The South Dakota Republican Attorney General slammed the allegations as, "shoddy and irresponsible and sensationalistic and garbage." (73)

    But I wasn't looking up the Pine Ridge tribe to determine their voting record or to pass judgment on these fraud allegations. Continuing my search, I was shocked to learn that Shannon county was the poorest county in the United States in 1990, and is now the second poorest county (2000)! The poorest county 'honors' now belongs to Buffalo County in central South Dakota, a reservation inhabited by the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe. (76) 

    The Census Bureau states that the per capita income of Shannon county is $6,530 (1999) and unemployment was 51% (2000) (75). However, other sources cite figures even lower ($3,400 per capita and 70-85% unemployment), stating that statistics can't be accurately recorded and that the unemployment figures are skewered low because many jobs are only part time and that many many residents have stopped looking for jobs (74), (77), (78). Diabetes and alcoholism is widespread. The Creek Sioux tribe suffer similar statistics to the Pine Ridge tribe.  

The large disparities in unemployment estimates are most likely caused by the fact that, without employment opportunities, Pine Ridge residents reduce their jobseeking efforts and become “discouraged workers,” who are not counted among the unemployed. In Shannon County, only 48 percent of adults over age 18 are counted as within the workforce. (79)

    Regardless, in these poorer Native American Reservations we see the same pattern we saw in the African American community; high unemployment, high poverty and widespread female headship. What always accompanies these patterns? High rates of government assistance. As I began to investigate the extent of government assistance I was surprised by some of the harsh political rhetoric of those railing against how the reservations were run. The Society for Threatened People (a NGO) railed (77):

More than 60 percent of the population lives below the federal poverty level. 

Here where cradle-to-grave socialism, the Democrats' fantasy state, is realized, more than half the reservation's adults battle addiction and disease. (77)

    An April 7th column at (conservative) Newsmax.com reports (78):

Whalen, the Shannon County GOP chairman, believes that Democrat-backed government programs that dole out entitlements to Indians are the root of the problem. 

"I see how the social programs are devastating the people around here," Whalen, a 41-year-old college student and Lakota Sioux Indian, said during a recent break from classes at Pine Ridge Oglala Lakota College. 

"I mean it's pure communism, and it's an abject failure. Just like it was in the Soviet Union. It's failure. You've created a dictatorship by the Bureau of Indian Affairs," Means said. (78)

    Was it really so bad?  The Housing Assistance Council (another NGO) did a case study of Shannon county and found (79):

In 2002, as in 1990, the largest single employers on the entire Pine Ridge reservation are public entities like the tribal government and the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA).

  An estimated 11 percent of Shannon County’s population received Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) cash payments in January 2002 (almost 5.8 times the national rate (80)), and approximately 36 percent received Food Stamps (5.5 times the national rate (80)). [keep in mind that this is only for one given month]

Another federal assistance program, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations, is headquartered in a large warehouse in the village of Pine Ridge from which a wide variety of food commodities are dispensed to local residents. Recipients must qualify for benefits each month, based on family size and income. Many families on the Pine Ridge reservation participate in this program as an alternative to the Food Stamp program because there are few privately owned food stores at Pine Ridge. (79)

    Now, this is truly amazing... the food stamp program isn't being used because of a shortage of private food stores. And why should there be any? They would be undercut by the free Federal food!

Low-cost HUD-funded rental and ownership units constitute the most affordable type of housing on the reservation. All of them provide water, sewer, and electricity. (HUD stands for Housing and Urban Development, a huge federal housing program)

Like Native Americans on reservations throughout the United States, Pine Ridge residents have little access to private credit. According to local housing practitioners, the possibility of obtaining a mortgage is further complicated by the legal complexities of tribal land ownership structure. (multiple individuals often own the same land - by the way, lack of land deeds and ownership is considered one of the biggest barriers to third world development)

Another indication of the extent of the tribe’s housing need is the tribal housing authority’s waiting list of 1,200 names. Furthermore, in an effort to quantify some of the tribe’s housing requirements, the housing authority has identified a need for 4,000 additional units on the reservation. (79)

    The study concludes:

The poverty on the Pine Ridge reservation, and its population’s subsequent high dependency on public assistance, are emblematic of a dire absence of economic opportunity. The primary barrier to construction of roads and other infrastructure, he adds, is the lack of a strong economic base that could foster private investment, yielding a tax base for the tribal government. (79)

When unemployment rates exceed 50 percent in their areas, Native American families living on reservations in South Dakota are exempt from public assistance time limits while they are within reservation boundaries. (79)

    This is absolutely unbelievable! What do these government officials, bureaucrats, whoever they are, think causes unemployment to be so high in the first place!? For 60+ years these perfectly capable, creative, intelligent people have rotted on this reservation under the iron fist of the 'kind and caring' federal government and when the system is finally reformed in the rest of the nation they remain subjugated! And what do you know - unemployment is at 51%...

    So, after looking at the tribe with the lowest rate of children with two parents (35.2%) on Chart 46, I then turned to the highest, the Oklahoma TJSA tribe in which 65.8% of all children live with two parents, a rate just slightly lower than the national average (70.2%). Interestingly enough, TJSA isn't a tribe and they don't live on reservations.  

The Oklahoma TJSA population includes all American Indians who live in areas delineated by federally recognized tribes in Oklahoma without reservations (only the Osage in Oklahoma officially have a reservation), for which the Census Bureau tabulates data. (80)

    The Oklahoma TJSA are the only Native American group with a lower rate of never married women over 15 years of age, (21.7%) then the regular population (23.4%). The unemployment rate is 12.4% (2 times the national rate), and the poverty rate is just under 30% (2.2 times the national rate). (83) While these rates are still high, the Oklahoma TJSA have not suffered the family collapse and destitutions that has hit some of the other Indian tribes. By not living on reservations they may have escaped the 'help' of the federal government. They are not a small isolated group; they are the most numerous of all the tribes/groups listed in Chart 47 and Chart 46. If I find more information on their rates of public assistance I will post it, but my guess is it is amongst the lowest of all the Indian groups/tribes. 

    So, we have found the same general patterns of family breakup and destitution amongst Native Americans as we have seen among African Americans. In fact, through the Pine Ridge Indian tribe, we've been able to isolate the devastating effects of welfare to an even greater extent than with African Americans. 

<SNIP>

Tom Daschle, is in a tight race for a Senate seat this November. He offers familiar promises:

Daschle said that people on reservations would like to be on their own but that that was not possible without help. Treaty obligations require the government to provide health care, education and housing, he said. (78)

"We have Third World conditions," Daschle said. "Those treaty obligations ought to be respected and fulfilled." (78)

Daschle agreed Indians will play a big role in this year's Senate race. But he said a Democrat is better suited to represent them in the long run and help with issues such as health care, law enforcement, and housing. (78)

    Speaking of Pine Ridge, Clinton visited it 3 years after Welfare Reform and still believed that government programs were responsible for the plight of the people there. Whoops! If he said that he would be right. I mean, he believes that the reason the people are in poverty is because of under funded government programs: 

Former President Clinton waltzed through Pine Ridge on a lip-biting tour with Tom Daschle and then-Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Andrew Cuomo in 1999. "You have suffered from neglect, and you know that doesn't work (this is what I mean by the 'soft bigotry of low expectations' - how condescending!). You have also suffered from the tyranny of patronizing, inadequately funded government programs, and you know that doesn't work," Clinton thundered in a speech promising to create "new markets" for the poor and clean up the squalor in Tom Daschle's South Dakota. (77) (emphasis mine)

    Has any of this helped? Minnesota Public Radio says (76) :

In 1990, South Dakota's Shannon County made news when it was the poorest county in the nation. That ranking put the Pine Ridge Reservation in the federal government's Empowerment Zone. That gave the county millions in federal dollars for economic development. Even President Bill Clinton visited the reservation, putting it in the national spotlight.

Most of the federal and casino money go toward welfare, health care and housing needs. Economic development falls to the bottom of the priority list without allocating any money. Kirkie says the national ranking could help them get some federal money.

Shannon County showed some income growth in the last ten years. But it still ranks as the nation's second poorest county. (76) [hmm... what went wrong? Oh well, the solution is still the same - increase funding!]

    Other parts of the world, France, Germany and even Scandinavia are cutting back social spending and attempting to lower taxes. Asian nations have been quietly mocking the West for some time. A University of North Carolina study found:

In Singapore, former President Lee Kuan Yew and the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) seldom passes up the opportunity to re-assert the superiority of his "Asian values" over the Western disease of "welfarism." His successor, President Ong Teng Cheong repeated the PAP sermon thus, when opening Singapore’s Parliament in 1994: "Developed countries in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada once proudly called themselves welfare states. Now they have to revamp their welfare systems in order to remedy the disastrous side effects of state welfare: weakened family bonds, diminished incentives to work, and impoverishment of the country’s finances .... Their problems confirm that we have chosen the right path." (206)

    The NAACP and other African American groups continue their fiery rhetoric against the President and other Republicans. The various counties I described throughout this paper continue to vote up to 90% Democratic. On August 9th 2004 the Native Times, which bills itself as the largest source of Native American news, wrote an Editorial titled, "Bush Stumbles over Key Native Concept". The entire Editorial (210):

When President George W. Bush spoke to Native reporters at the UNITY conference in Washington DC last week, he spoke with some awkwardness and clumsiness over his definition of sovereignty.

Clearly, it is not a concept which rolls off his tongue with any ease. He seems to have a problem with foreign and domestic sovereign nations. It may come down to respect.

Bush has lost whatever goodwill this country possessed after the last administration from the world community. People looked at America and thought here was a place where concepts of mutual respect grew and prospered. That image of the United States has been replaced with a great deal of anger over our presence in the Middle East. It is undeniable that our stature as a crucible for good is tarnished.

Bush has visited with tribes once since he took office, and it was done off Indian land with the Pueblos of New Mexico. Bush fought against Texas tribes from seeking recognition and questioned the whole concept of tribal sovereignty while serving as governor.

Kerry promised Native American Journalist Association leaders that he would visit an Indian reservation and invite Native reporters on the trip. Kerry made good on the promise in less than four days. Today Kerry is visiting the Navajo reservation and true to his word there are Indian reporters along for the ride.

The importance of understanding what sovereignty means and making good on promises are important campaign issues for Indian people. Kerry and Bush both demonstrated their unique capacity for understanding both. (210)

    Irregardless if what they say about Bush as governor of Texas is true, recall that we found that the Native American group with the lowest poverty, unemployment and single motherhood rates (in a sample group of tribes) were the Oklahoma TJSA, which didn't live on reservations and were a mix of tribes. Perhaps Bush is on to something... I question whether this Editorial staff and other Native Americans leaders have succumbed to the same seductive ideology as have some African American leaders. 

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Posted 11/2/05

Bad Water, Bad leadership

10/30/05 Ottawa Sun Just like our own Native American Indian reservations, Canadian reservations are plagued by similar conditions with have similar causes of poverty. Kashechawan, where the water that flows from the taps is so filthy and contaminated it's not fit for bathing, let alone drinking. Where residents, many of whom are on welfare, say they often spend $300 to $400 for about five days worth of groceries. <.> Nothing short of a crisis, it seems, can spur the Department of Indian Affairs into action. And even then the government seems inclined to do only what is necessary to end the controversy instead of finding long-term solutions.

    They still ignore the fact that the reserve system isn't working. That sending billions of dollars to band councils is not improving living conditions on the reserves. That under the Indian Act, most families are denied the simple right to own their homes.

    Denied the right to own their homes? This is a good follow-up on the Hernando De Soto post below (11/2/05), see archives. In 'Native Americans and Welfare' I wrote:

    "Like Native Americans on reservations throughout the United States, Pine Ridge residents have little access to private credit. According to local housing practitioners, the possibility of obtaining a mortgage is further complicated by the legal complexities of tribal land ownership structure." (79) (multiple individuals often own the same land - by the way, lack of land deeds and ownership is considered one of the biggest barriers to third world development)

The Failures and Fallacies of Foreign Aid - (Posted 3/23/05)

1990 The Freeman - David Osterfeld writes a long, and in depth analysis of foreign aid. I intend to follow up on some of his sources and citations. Very impressed with this; he has covered and documented many of the same things which I have observed independently and described on this web site. For example, running parallel to Osterfeld's findings are: Native Americans and Welfare, Causes of Poverty in Developing Nations, and Arab Governments and Causes of Terrorism.

"For God's Sake please stop the Aid"

7/4/05 Der Spiegel REQUIRED READING African economist James Shikwati (who claims to have been tossed out of 'public university' for being a 'capitalist') nails it perfectly. He mentions everything I've mentioned on this site and more. Short and sweet and to the point. Der Spiegel is shocked. I almost posted this entire article verbatim. An African Libertarian! We need more.

(72) http://books.nap.edu/books/0309055482/html/203.html#pagetop

(73) http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york121902.asp

(74) http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Michael_Moore/Downsize_This.html :)

(75) http://www.indicators.nwaf.org/ShowOneRegion.asp?IndicatorID=1022&FIPS=4606

(76) http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/200206/03_hughesa_census/southdakota.shtml

(77) http://www.ruralhome.org/pubs/hsganalysis/ts2000/NativeCase.pdf

(77) http://www.natives.de/the%20shamble%20in%20South%20Dakota.htm

(78) http://www.ruralhome.org/pubs/hsganalysis/ts2000/NativeCase.pdf

(79) http://www.ruralhome.org/pubs/hsganalysis/ts2000/NativeCase.pdf

(80) http://aspe.os.dhhs.gov/hsp/indicators04/ch2.htm#figind1a

(81) http://www.nap.edu/openbook/0309055482/html/200.html

(82) http://books.nap.edu/books/0309055482/html/208.html#p200063b79960208001

(83) http://www.nap.edu/openbook/0309055482/html/199.html#p200063b79960199001

(206) http://www.unc.edu/depts/econ/seminars/Lindert.pdf

(210) http://nativetimes.com/index.asp?action=displayarticle&article_id=4884

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