Dave Palermo: Recession hits tribal casino industry

Thursday, May 14, 2009  

"The recession has had a widely diverse impact on the 360 historically impoverished American Indian tribes in the lower 48 states. If anything, it has created an even larger gap between Native America’s haves and have-nots.

Sixty or 70 tribes with lucrative casinos – many with small populations and located in metropolitan areas – bemoan drops of nine percent or more in gaming revenues. The employees being laid off are largely non-Indians. And tribal leaders view their plight as a momentary blip in an unprecedented economic surge that began two decades ago and will likely resume in a year or so.

Meanwhile, nearly 300 larger and more remote tribes in the Great Plains, upper Midwest and Southwest United States – those with marginal gaming operations or no casinos at all – try to come to grips with the cyclical, growing unemployment, rising energy bills and gas prices and skyrocketing cost of food, housing, health care and other necessities that has plagued them for generations.

“It has made us more poor,” said President Joe Shirley Jr. of the vast and largely impoverished Navajo Nation, where unemployment ranges from 50 to 55 percent.

“It depends on the region,” Alan Gordon, senior vice president of Bank of America’s Native American division, said of the recession’s impact on the Native American economy.

He said housing and credit markets have obviously felt the economic downturn in those tribes in Southern California and Arizona closely tied to the casino."

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Dave Palermo: Recession impact on Native America varies with tribes (Indian Country Today 5/13)