Study: Casinos help Indian tribes out of poverty
/Besides the gleaming towers built by gambling wealth, there is evidence
in nearly every American Indian reservation in the region that the
casino industry is improving people's lives. New homes are being built
and old ones are being spruced up. Health centers are expanding their
services and sports complexes are being developed. Monthly payments are
being disbursed and scholarships are being awarded to tribal members.
Yet there is a marked difference among those tribes that have gambling
on their reservations and those that don't. Nationwide, casino gambling
helped American Indians raise their standard of living during the
1990s, but they were still among the poorest people in the nation,
according to a Harvard University study released this month. Family
poverty rates among tribes with casinos fell from 36 percent in 1990 to
27 percent in 2000. But that rate was still three times higher than the
national average of 9 percent, according to the study. Tribes fortunate enough
to have their reservations near urban centers or near major highway
arteries have clearly had an advantage. Others in remote areas of the
county have had to struggle to find their way. For most of the 200
tribes nationwide that run casinos, the benefit of the gaming business
lies in the job it generates, not the monthly payments, tribal leaders
say. The Harvard study was funded by the National Indian
Gaming Association, a tribal gambling trade group. It was conducted by
the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, a research
organization. Tribal members whose governments operate casinos had
higher incomes, lower poverty rates, lower unemployment rates and were
less likely to receive public assistance than those that did not have
casinos, according to the study. [more] and [more]
