By Chad Wilkerson & Chase Farha This edition of the Okl ahoma Economist issued by the Oklahoma City Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City analyzes in detail the economic progress made by Native Americans across the state over the past 10 to 15 y ears.
As incomes and education levels have risen in tribal areas – where most of the state’s Native American population lives – poverty rates among Native Americans have come dow3n more than the national average in most of these areas.
Oklahoma’s Native American population as a share of total population is approximately seven times larger than in the nation as a whole.
The vast majority of Oklahoma’s Native American population lives in one of the state’s 26 Oklahoma Tribal Statistical Areas (OTSAs). These areas include most of the state’s land mass and two-thirds of the overall population, with the only exceptions being in the northwestern and very central parts of the state.
Elsewhere in the continental United States, less than a quarter of the Native American population and less than 1% of the to tal population lives in a trib al area. No other state in the Lower 48 has as high a share of its land mass in a tribal area as Oklahoma.
Further, nearly a third of the nation’s American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) alone population lives in an Oklahoma tribal area.
While Oklahoma accounts for much of the nation’s tribal area population, the state’s tribal areas differ somewhat from others in the United States.
Almost all of Oklahoma’s tribal areas are specially defined as “statistical entities identified and delineated by the Census Bureau in consultation with federally recognized American Indian tribes that had a f ormer reservation in Oklahoma,” whereas most tribal areas in other states are federally recognized reservations.
Additionally, tribal areas outside of Oklahoma have higher concentrations of Native Americans, with AIAN alone making up about a quarter of their tribal area populations compared to a tenth, on average, in Oklahoma.
Income, education Oklahoma’s Native American population in tribal areas has seen impressive gains in incomes and educational attainment in recent decades.
The Census Bureau’s American Community Survey publishes five-year estimates of many economic and demographic indicators for U.S. tribal areas.
Recently released estimates for the 2019-2023 period show tribal areas’ improvement in several indicators relative to the 2006-2010 period.
Native American incomes in Oklahoma’s tribal areas have grown more than the national and state average, partially due to an acceleration in recent years. By 2018, AIAN incomes in trib al areas and incomes for all races in Oklahoma both grew around 20% from 2010 levels. By 2023, AIAN tribal area incomes had grown 56% from 2010 levels while the state total increased 48%.
Despite the higher gains, the median Native American in Oklahoma’s tribal areas still lagged the statewide median income by more than $7,500 in the 2019-2023 period. AIAN incomes in U.S. tribal areas trailed the national average by a considerably larger amount, with the median Native American in U.S. tribal areas earning $46,408 in the 2019-2023 period compared to $78,538 in the U.S. as a whole.
Many more Native Americans in tribal areas completed their high school education in the past decade than before. In Oklahoma’s tribal areas, the AIAN population have increased their high school completion rate to 87%, now onl y 2% below the state and national average.
The share of Native Americans in U.S. tribal areas with a high school degree or equivalent has risen by nearly 8 percentage points since 2010. Despite the impressive gains in educational attainment, the U.S. average rate for Native Americans in tribal areas is 82%, below the U.S. average of 89%.
Decline in poverty Rising incomes and education levels among Native Americans likely led to falling poverty rates in U.S. tribal areas.
Poverty rates for Native Americans in tribal areas in both the U.S. and Oklahoma have steadily fallen since the 2010-2014 period.
Their rates are now 3.5 to 4 percentage points lower than the 2006-2010 period, while the state and national averages for all races are only around 1 to 1.5 percentage points lower.
Despite this, a higher share of Oklahomans and Native Americans experience poverty than other populations in the United States. Oklahoma’s poverty rate is 15%, 3 percentage points higher than the national average, and its AIAN poverty rate in tribal areas is 19%. While higher than the state average, Oklahoma’s Native American tribal area poverty rate is 10 percentage points lower than the rate for Native Americans in all U.S. tribal areas.
These improvements in poverty for Native Americans are broad-based across the state’s tribal areas. Almost all the tribal areas in Oklahoma saw meaningful reductions in their AIAN poverty rate since the 2006-2010 period.
The Cheyenne and Arapaho, Kickapoo, and Sac and Fox tribal areas saw the greatest reductions in poverty rate, decreasing by 11.7, 8.6, and 6.5 percentage points, respectively.
The poverty rate for Native Americans living in non-tribal areas in Oklahoma ticked down by about 0.7 percentage points and is not far from the tribal area average of 19%. The Native American poverty rates in Oklahoma’s tribal areas ranged from 12% to 32% in the 2019-2023 period, while the rates for all races ranged from 11% to 23%. The gaps between poverty rates for Native Americans versus all races has narrowed—and even closed completely—in many of the state’s tribal areas, including in the Chickasaw, Citizen Potawatomi Nation-Absentee Shawnee, Choctaw, Sac and Fox, Cherokee, Kickapoo, Creek, and Cheyenne and Arapaho OTSAs.
Summary, conclusion Oklahoma’s tribal areas make up most of the state ’s land mass and more than 85% of its Native American population. These areas have generally seen sizable economic improvement in recent decades. Incomes and high-school completion rates have increased at above average pace for the Native American population in Oklahoma’s tribal areas and poverty rates have decreased considerably. Poverty among Native Americans remains higher than average in most Oklahoma tribal areas, but the progress made in recent decades may provide some optimism for continued improvement in decades to come.
Chad Wilkerson serves as Oklahoma City Branch executive and senior vic e president for the F ederal Reserve Bank o f Kansas City.
Chase Farha is a r esearch associate in the R egional Affairs department at the Oklahoma City branch of the Federal Reserve Bank o f Kansas City.