There are only about 400 businesses in the Navajo Nation. With a few exceptions, such as a coal mine, they are tiny. The official unemployment rate is about 50%, and the median income is less than half the American average.*
Three times a month—when the welfare cheques arrive, and when government workers are paid—Navajos stream out of the reservation to stock up on groceries, car parts and alcohol in border towns.
The local joke goes that the tribe's biggest export is dollars.
Like their Canadian cousins...
At some point... these folks are gonna have to start listening to people like Chief Clarence Louie...
