New report takes first-of-its-kind look at wealth through the eyes of Native Americans in Massachusetts

January 14, 2025

Boston—A new report commissioned by Boston Indicators and prepared by the Institute for New England Native American Studies at UMass Boston finds education, labor, and wealth gaps between Native American and non-Native households in Massachusetts, pairing the data with insights from a series of focus groups on the lived experiences of Native Americans in Massachusetts.

“To Live and Thrive in Massachusetts”: Native American Perspectives on Wealth, was released today in a webinar co-hosted by Boston Indicators and the Boston Foundation.

“Understanding wealth gaps requires us to overcome the traditional data limitations of sample sizes that have challenged many past efforts to understand the gaps affecting Native Americans in Massachusetts,” said Luc Schuster, Executive Director of Boston Indicators, the research center of the Boston Foundation. “By coupling the limited data with this series of extensive focus groups, the research team has given us a picture that shows both the gaps and the community-centered approaches that could close them.”

“One really cannot understand the material wealth of Native American communities without also seeking to understand Native American perspectives on wealth,” said Dr. J. Cedric Woods, Director of the Institute for New England Native American Studies. “Shaped by the historical impact of discrimination, disenfranchisement and outright theft of Native lands, those perspectives fold in aspects of community, connection and nature that must also be central to any efforts to repair harm and truly close wealth and other gaps.”

The report opens by examining the historical context that has resulted in a persistent wealth gap between Native and non-Native people in Massachusetts. Before 1869, Native community members were recognized as resident aliens rather than as citizens of Massachusetts. The change to that status, laid out in the 1869 Massachusetts Enfranchisement and Allotment Act, resulted in a massive loss of Native landholdings that still resonates today in lower levels of Native homeownership and wealth.

To Live and Thrive cover

"One really cannot understand the material wealth of Native American communities without also seeking to understand Native American perspectives on wealth."

-Dr. J. Cedric Woods, Institute for New England Native American Studies at UMass Boston

To examine the economic and demographic data, the research team expanded their analysis to include both those who identify as Native Americans and those who identify as Native in combination with another race. Comparing this group with non-Native populations, the researchers found several gaps, including:

  • 44 percent of Native Americans in Massachusetts have a high school degree or less, compared with 31 percent of non-Natives
  • 41 percent of Native Americans in Massachusetts own their homes, compared with 63 percent of non-Natives
  • 36 percent of Native Americans in Massachusetts have an income over $100,000 per year, versus 50 percent of non-Natives.
  • While Native and non-Native people own businesses at roughly the same rate, Native Americans are more than three times as likely to own businesses in less lucrative industries, such as accommodations, food service and retail.

The qualitative research, a series of five conversations with eighteen people mostly affiliated with several regional Tribes (as well as one with a group of ‘ex-pats’ from other tribes now living in Massachusetts), provided critical insights into the causes, impacts, and best practices for closing those gaps.

Moderators structured the 90-minute sessions around seven central questions:

  1. How would you, as a Native person, define wealth?
  2. What historical factors have affected wealth and development of wealth in Native communities?
  3. What do you see as barriers keeping Native people from building wealth?
  4. How does access to wealth (or the lack of it) affect your day-to-day life and long-term planning?
  5. What does it look like to build wealth? Or what would it look like?
  6. What have your experiences been with building and maintaining wealth?
  7. What kinds of support (or structural changes) do you, your family, and community need to build and maintain wealth?

Through the conversations, a number of common themes emerged, among them that the Native groups shared a much more inclusive view of wealth, including the values of community cohesion, cultural knowledge and spiritual stability. Many focus group members highlighted the importance of wealth as a community asset, which made the privatization policies of the 1869 Massachusetts Indian Enfranchisement and Allotment Act that much more devastating.

In addition, focus group members highlighted the importance of stability over accumulation across many dimensions of wealth. They also underscored the importance of access – to affordable housing and higher education – as a precondition for any effective repairs to gaps created by centuries of systemic discrimination.

“This research is a beginning of what needs to be a broader conversation around repairing centuries of harm,” said Allison B. Taylor, Senior Research Associate at UMass Boston’s Institute for Community Inclusion and a co-author of the report. “While groups highlighted some practical and achievable steps – such as improving financial literacy, increasing access to wealth-building opportunities, and strengthening community connections, it is clear these are just the first elements of a strategy to build a more equitable future.”

The full report is available now on the Boston Indicators website.