Delores Pigsley: Flawed study on casino per caps and economy

As Siletz Tribal Chairman, I want to point out that the law review article relied on faulty assumptions and mistakes of fact. One of the biggest problems is that the study includes ‘on-reservation population and poverty statistics,’ but the reporter presented these statistics as representative of the entire tribe. In fact, no tribe has all of its members living on the reservation.

In 2014 alone, the Siletz Tribe’s gaming revenues generated $808,225 in higher education and adult vocational grants, $400,000 in out-of-area health care payments, and $1,324,711 to Tribal Elder programs and individuals designed to “increase overall Tribal health and educational attainment and to ameliorate the negative effects of termination.”

These are just a few of the items toward which the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians put gaming funds in 2014, in addition to the per capita payment of $1,200 to tribal members. Receiving a payment of $1,200 annually—that isn’t already dedicated to rent, mortgage, or electric bills—is a great benefit to tribal members, but it certainly isn’t enough to quit your job and start loafing, no matter how attractive “sloth” may seem.

The Economist article states there are 2,452 tribal members living on the reservation. Tribal data shows there are only 582. The tribe has 4,984 enrolled tribal members, and only 1,188 live in the two counties where a casino employment commute would be practical.

The study included only 24 tribes, less than .096 percent of the 250 tribes with casinos. The study did not include enough tribes to label all Native Americans as poorer because of casinos, as indicated in the headline of the article.