Screenshots herein come courtesy of Joe Kalt, co-director of the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development at Harvard Kennedy School, who testified yesterday before the Alyce Spotted Bear and Walter Soboleff Commission on Native Children. (The commission is working on a report to the U.S. Congress on improving all outcomes for Native youth on a variety of measures, including health, education and safety.)

I still have lots to write about from that hearing and about the commission’s progress, but thought it would be interesting during this holiday season to share some of the data Kalt presented regarding reduced poverty and increasing resources on many reservations (and not simply due to gaming and/or federal financial support). This narrative runs counter to ones presented by many in the media and in anecdotes we see presented all the the time for various political reasons.

Kalt himself says that the main takeaway from this undeniable economic progress is that increased federal support for tribal self-governance over the past 50 years is working mightily.

“The onset of tribal self-determination through self-government in the late 1980s ushered in the only policy that has ever worked to improve economic and social conditions in Indian Country,” the economic guru said during the hearing.

That’s exciting to ponder anew — and it should inform all policymakers’ current proposal-making regarding tribes.

Some people during the meeting itself seemed surprised for various reasons. One person said they thought poverty was at 80+ percent on “several” reservations. While it is true that some reservations continue to intensely struggle, the overall tribal economic story is one of dramatic growth and improvement.

No doubt, there is a long way to go to reduce the Native poverty level to the point where it matches the abysmal U.S. non-Indian level, but Kalt’s point is that something obvious has been working thus far — tribal self-governance — so why not keep investing in it?

My own comment of the moment: It would have been right for federal policymakers to take a second — yes, there was time — to better account for some of this data when developing pandemic relief proposals for tribes over the past 3 years. There are inequities to address (a mantra of this administration, if you haven’t noticed), and that mission could have been done in a better way, using better formulas. Ask the lawyers and researchers who have developed some of the opioid settlements. Fairness is difficult to achieve, but there are certainly numbers out there that can help in that goal.