Indigenous Peoples’ Earnings, Inequality, and Well-Being

This chapter describes earnings inequality and poverty measures for four groups of Indigenous peoples in the United States over the past 30 years using available data. The analysis provides a useful comparison to racial and ethnic minorities in the United States. Additionally, the chapter explores ways in which the existing measures of monetary income and earnings may miss significant sources of resource exchange, transfer, and provision in these communities. Accounting for these additional activities may indicate that these communities are more resilient than official measures would suggest. This chapter also argues that certain environmental and natural resources provide uncounted and unmeasured value; however, the benefit and value that they provide to communities and peoples are not allocated via price mechanisms and are thus not easily counted or measured. A potential solution is the inclusion of expanded questions and surveys that include questions that measure non-market-based flows of income and services for Indigenous peoples.