Indian Country Poverty: Place-Based Poverty on American Indian Territories, 2006-10

摘要

This article examines place-based poverty in Indian Country, emphasizing that reservation characteristics are influenced by the system of federal Indian policy that affects American Indian self-determination and antipoverty strategies within reservation boundaries. Using data from the American Community Survey five-year file, 2006-10, I model poverty rates using multivariate, nested regression along key dimensions associated with American Indian antipoverty strategies and place-based poverty. The results indicate that rates of female-headed households and opportunity structures, such as lack of work, contribute to higher rates of reservation poverty while gaming acts as a slight buffer against poverty. Surprisingly, natural-resource-related occupations, thought to be associated with expropriation of tribal resources, was not associated with higher poverty, while self-governance compacts, acting as a proxy for tribal autonomy, had no significant impact on poverty rates. As tribal governments seek to address poverty through strategies enabled by self-determination policies, there is a critical need for more comprehensive and reliable data to understand how and whether tribal governments can effectively adapt federal policies to specific reservation conditions.