When you ask Google AI which are the poorest counties in South Dakota, three counties are consistently named: Todd County, Jackson County and Oglala Lakota County. Today, a google AI search shows the poorest county at the top of the overview as Oglala Lakota county, which includes the Pine Ridge reservation and has the highest poverty rate of 48.8%. Median income is $34,769 and per capital income is $11,650. Jackson County also rates among the poorest with the poverty rate of 38.9%. Todd County has a poverty rate of 38.4% and is also listed among the five poorest counties in the US. Other counties in South Dakota with high poverty rates based on recent government data include Carson County 35.2%, Zebach County 34%, Bennett county 31.1%, Mellette County 30.9% and Buffalo County at 30.7%.
Every one of these counties are located within an Indian reservation in this state. Last week South Dakota searchlight ran a story about three of these counties which they determined were the most SNAP dependent counties in the whole United States.
I think we’re all accustomed to being judged as the poorest counties in the United States as this has been going on for a very long time. According to the SD Department of Social Services, there will not be any snap benefits distributed this week after being paused due to a US Supreme Court ruling last week. The Supreme Court Granted a temporary stay on issuing the full benefit to the entire United States on Friday.
The United States might judge us as the poorest county in the country, but our Lakota people have stepped up to this challenge in the past year. SicanguCo. has been generously distributing Buffalo meat all summer through their harvest markets and other public events. Pine Ridge’s Sacred Storm has also distributed Buffalo meat to many people in Rapid City and other locations. RF Buche has offered $100 worth of groceries to each SNAP household to help with food shortages.
I hope you’re all taking advantage of the complementary buffalo meat that Sicangu Co is distributing. We all appreciate the food that has been gifted to us through donations and public distributions. We appreciate our Tribal leaders and other visionaries who established our Buffalo herds and provided land for them to graze on so the Pte Oyate could sustain us today. Many of us appreciate our tribal leaders for stepping up to provide healthy food during this short fall. Consequently, South Dakota’s congressional delegation and governor did not support using any taxpayer dollars to provide SNAP benefits during this government shutdown, which is now the longest in history.
Poverty Porn aside: The US government labels our reservations as the poorest counties in the United States and maybe we are poor in some areas, but we still have our culture and our heritage. We still have our songs; we still have our powerful ceremonies. We still have our values such as generosity that we are seeing a lot of during this time, as many of our people are sharing food and helping their families to have enough to eat. Maybe a survey should be done on all the reservations to see how much they still have left too. We might not have enough food, but we have our culture and our families and our relatives to get through this. Where’s the tribal data on our compassion and cultural wealth?
Once before, the US government tried to starve our people by killing off a lot of the Pte Oyate (Buffalo) that our ancestors depended on to eat. And when I think of the SNAP benefit being withheld by greedy government officials, I remember the picture of thousands and thousands of Buffalo skulls piled on top of each other and one man standing at the top.
They tried to kill all the Buffalo, as they were trying to kill us off, but we survived. Finally, I have attended ceremony where people give thanks for having enough food to eat. Our elders say long time ago a woman prayed for us to always have enough to eat, so I want to encourage you to pray for our children to have enough to eat and also to help your families and neighbors to get meals every day, especially our children and elders. Thank you.
Sicangu News 
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