To our clients and friends in Indian Country and all working to improve the economic future for Native American people: KlasRobinson Q.E.D. is pleased to present the accompanying white paper entitled: “Healing Tribal Economies – A Prognosis and Prescriptions for Economic Recovery from COVID-19 in Indian Country." The current COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in unprecedented upheavals in economic conditions in the U.S. and around the globe. Indian country is uniquely vulnerable, both to the disease itself and to the public health measures required to contain its spread. With higher rates of various comorbidity factors, less robust healthcare systems, and dependence on tourism, agriculture, extraction and federal transfers to fund government services, tribes face threats from the pandemic on multiple fronts. At the same time, information on the course of the virus and estimates of the impacts of its ravages and of the mitigation efforts employed to combat it are limited, incomplete and often contradictory. The disease itself, and the steps taken to fight it, are simply too new and variable to provide clarity and consistency in data and analysis to guide tribal leadership. Nevertheless, the need for immediate action and for planning for long-term recovery forces tribal leaders, like leaders at all levels, to make choices based upon the best information and analysis available, however imperfect it may be. Within that context, our goal in this white paper is to sift through the various information sources and preliminary predictions being offered and construct a framework for understanding the most likely outcomes and best plans of attack. Our hope is that this work will provide tribes with more than simply another set of predictions, but also the analytical discussion to be able to draw their own conclusions in developing plans for their people and adjust those plans over time as new data becomes available. To do this, we have taken our more than 30 years of experience forecasting future outcomes for more than 250 tribes and applied it to this very troubling situation to give our best estimates and recommendations for tribal economic recovery from COVID-19. One thing we know for sure: as bad as this is, tribal leaders have weathered far more severe storms throughout history and will survive the current crisis to continue to protect their cultures and their people. KlasRobinson Q.E.D.
James M. Klas Founder & Principal
Matthew S. Robinson Founder & Principal
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