"At Spirit Lake Reservation, one of the problems that people face is the high unemployment rate, and I’m sure that all of the reservations in the state face the same problem.

The unemployment rate on Spirit Lake Reservation is more than 50 percent. That means many, many native North Dakotans are not working because they have no job.

In my view, North Dakota has not addressed the problem of high unemployment on the state’s Indian reservations. I have worked with federal funding and North Dakota state funding agencies; and to be blunt, the job-related or economic problems of the nation’s Indian reservations tend not to be talked about much because those problems are perceived to have been brought on by the culture. Nothing could be further from the truth."

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Jerry Cavanaugh: N.D. should help tribal members start businesses (The Grand Forks Herald 5/5)