ABSTRACT
This chapter examines regional economic conditions in counties in the continental United States that contain tribal lands. The major findings are summarized below.
Tribal lands tend to be located in lower-income counties, but they also are located in counties that are experiencing rapid growth in employment and population. This is especially true in counties where the American Indian population is less than 30 percent of the total county population. In counties where the American Indian population accounts for more than 30 percent of the total population, growth in population and employment tends to be significantly slower than in counties with lower percentages of American Indian population.
Tribal lands tend to be located in nonmetropolitan counties.
The fact that tribal counties tend to be located in isolated, nonmetropolitan areas suggests that relatively lower per capita income in tribal areas may be largely due to locational factors, such as lack of access to markets, inadequate infrastructure, and a lower cost of living. To assess the significance of locational influences and other factors in accounting for lower income levels in tribal counties, regression analyses of the determinants of variation in per capita county income are conducted. The regression analyses enable both a comparison of tribal counties with other types of counties and a detailed examination of income determinants within tribal counties.
Overall, the results of the regression analyses indicate that although locational factors are indeed significant determinants of county-level income variation, those factors alone do not explain lower levels of per capita income. That is the case both across all counties and across tribal counties, particularly tribal counties in which American Indians compose a large percentage of the population and tribal counties containing Oklahoma-related areas (Oklahoma tribal statistical areas, or OTSAs) and other statistical areas (such as tribally designated statistical areas, or TDSAs) as opposed to reservations. (This chapter abbreviates the reference to the nonreservation areas as OTSA-TDSA locations.) The regression analyses compared tribal counties with other types of counties, including all other counties, urban nontribal counties (compared with urban tribal counties), and rural nontribal counties (compared with rural tribal counties). The results show that the mere presence of a tribal area within a county does not imply lower overall county income levels. However, if a county containing a tribal area has a population that is at least 5 percent American Indian, then income levels in that county are likely to be significantly lower than income levels in other counties, even after controlling for factors such as location in a nonmetropolitan area, lack of market access, poor labor quality (measured by adult population educational attainment), high rates of unemployment, and so forth. Additionally, if a tribal county contains an OTSA-TDSA (as opposed to a reservation), income levels are likely to be significantly lower than income levels in other counties, after controlling for other factors. The findings imply that 124there is a need for economic development within tribal counties with high percentages of American Indian population and within OTSA-TDSA counties. • Separate regression analyses of tribal counties and different categories of tribal counties (including tribal counties with high percentages of American Indian population, tribal counties containing reservations, and tribal counties containing OTSAs-TDSAs) were conducted to identify the determinants of income variation within tribal counties. The key determinants of income variation in all types of tribal counties were educational attainment (especially the share of the population that is college educated), unemployment rates, cost of living in the surrounding region, the share of the population that is retired, economic structure, and the percentage of the county population that is American Indian. The results suggest two important avenues to fostering growth in per capita income: (1) investing in education to improve the quality of the labor force and (2) diversifying tribal county economic bases (that is, to develop activity in sectors other than agriculture and natural resources and federal civilian government) in order to raise wage levels and reduce unemployment.
