Rural Alaska's struggle for survival (Anchorage, Fairbanks: employment, transfer, income)

[NorthWord]

Non-Alaskans take note.

There is a very real "Mason-Dixon" type line drawn around every urban area in the state.

Floyd and Ray represent two sides of this old arguement, one that won't be settled anytime soon.

I stand by my very first statement of this thread:
When the going gets tough (Federal Aid gets cut back), the Bush will get cut lose first. The government doesn't need the people so much as they need the peoples' resources.

[Metlakatla]

Originally Posted by MeganAK

I probably shouldn't even post this because it will sound like I don't care, and I do, but....... I am wondering what people spent the Dividend on? I read an article about a couple with 8 kids not having food in Emmonak, and I DON'T want to start a flame war or anything, but that means that family got $32,000 in October for the Dividend. Where did it go?

Like I said, it makes me sad that people are struggling, and there are BIG problems in rural Alaska with cost of living, and it needs to be addressed, but even a family of two got $6400. A family of five got $16,000. That would go pretty far for food and fuel.

Please don't take offense to this question, because I live out here in rural Alaska, and I know it's tough, but that is ALOT of money to get and still be hungry.

Because for every family that got say 12K from the dividend this year, there's at least a few other family members that didn't--only got 3K or so. They help each other out. They'll pay a grandparent or an uncle's fuel bill and buy them food without a second thought if they have the money. It really isn't every family for themselves out there.

[warptman]

I just talked to my first cousin, he lives there. Not everyone is suffering. He says some are making a big deal out of it and then some are actually struggling. He has a job there, not sure what, I didn't bother asking. But he is making due though. Good for him!

[Metlakatla]

Sarah Palin Wishes Herself a Happy Birthday Press Conference…Also. « SHANNYN MOORE: JUST A GIRL FROM HOMER

[rotorhead]

The truth is that most villiages in rural Alaska are located where they are for reasons of subsistance, dating back to antiquity. Once the residents discontinue the subsistance life and enter the cash economy they are going to be at a severe disadvantage, for reasons of logistics if nothing else. There is no way to bring the cost of living down by any significant amount unless goods can be transported in by road, which is obviously impossible for most of Alaska. Transportation costs are always going to be the driving factor, and since a large proportion of those are dictated by the price of fuel the situation is only going to get much worse in the future as fuel prices inevitably rise.

Returning to a subsistance lifestyle after being part of the cash economy isn't an answer either. There probably aren't more than a handfull of Alaska residents who lead anything like a true subsistance life anymore, and even those benefit from goods and services provided by their neighbors in the cash economy and from government subsidies in some form. So many idealists romanticise the idea without having a true impression of what is involved. The truth of the matter is that it involves nearly constant, hard, physical work. It's dangerous, even disregarding modern transportation like skiffs and snowmachines. It requires a level of knowledge of the natural world that's largely disappeared from use, since the elders who actually used to live that way are an increasingly rare asset. And the most disregarded factor of all is that if you fail or fall short, you starve, and your children starve. It's all fine and good to admire "living off the land" and "self-dependance" but what is the cost, and the consequences?

Any question of "equitable treatment" in regards to government expenditures is going to be extremely complicated with multiple, opposing viewpoints. Do you define "equitable" as equal service, or equal expenditures towards providing the service? Do you penalize urban residents by spending far more to provide services in rural areas? Do you penalize rural residents by just providing equal amounts of money per capita and disregarding their much higher cost to acquire services? There is no easy solution, and no matter how you cut the pie somebody is gonna be unhappy with their slice.

[RayinAK]

Rotorhead,

I agree with what you have said. It makes complete sense. I will also add that when it comes to federal and State subsidies, the added cost to remote ares is taken into account. For example, a friends wife who works at Social Services was explaining to me that cost of living must be added to a person living in remote locations, and so school funds, since it takes more money to educate a kid in the bush than, for example, in Fairbanks. It costs more to have a library, DMV office, school, etc. out there that in the city. Also, there aren't many jobs available, so Social Services have to provide financial support.

You won't believe all the people who are receiving State and Federal support through Social Services, even from Delta, Chiken, to Tok to name a few, and I am not talking about places without roads

[DannyL]

Thank you Rotor, I have been try to figure out how to respond to all this, you said it better than I can.
I know about a lot of this first hand, I'm around it everyday.

( got that damn "spread it around" thing again. someone rep rotor for me please....)

[Floyd_Davidson]

Originally Posted by rotorhead

The truth is that most villiages in rural Alaska are located where they are for reasons of subsistance, dating back to antiquity.

Sounds good, but in fact it isn't so.

Most villages are located today where they are for reasons other than subsistance food sources. Transportation, schools, mining, trading posts, and churches (all based on non-traditional Native cultural needs) are the usual proximate cause for the current location of most Alaskan villages.

Bethel is there because that is where the Moravian mission was built. Aniak is there because a trading post was built there. Wainwright is there because the supplies for a school were offloaded from a ship at that place. Barrow is here because the water is deep enough for commerical whaling ships to land. Atqasuk is there because it was a coal mine. Ruby and Galena are there because of mining. The list is long, the reasons are almost all the same. And only relatively few villages are located due to subsistence needs.

Once the residents discontinue the subsistance life and enter the cash economy they are going to be at a severe disadvantage, for reasons of logistics if nothing else.

No, once they had adopted (that is all long since past tense) a mixed economic model based on the best use of both cash and subsistence, they should be at a great advantage. The question is then, why is it not working?

There is no way to bring the cost of living down by any significant amount unless goods can be transported in by road, which is obviously impossible for most of Alaska. Transportation costs are always going to be the driving factor, and since a large proportion of those are dictated by the price of fuel the situation is only going to get much worse in the future as fuel prices inevitably rise.

Why does that require a road? Roads are expensive and do not hardly provide the most efficient transportation!

If there were a road to Bethel, would heating oil be trucked in, or would it still come by barge? In fact the State of Alaska could spend billions of dollars on roads, and it still would not change the price of heating oil in most places! That is the sort of "sound bite" logic that is our biggest problem! It sounds good because it blames everything on an obvious difference (and that one is really great because it also very obviously cannot be corrected), but the problem is it does not have any significance at all!

The fact is that the State of Alaska has done a great deal in regard to transportation in Bush Alaska, and they continue to. Prior to oil money there were relatively very limited airport facilities available in most Bush locations. Prior to Senator Ted Stevens work to require mail contracts for villages the mail planes were rare flights rather that regular. Prior to Senator Ted Stevens setting up the bypass mail system the cost of passenger travel via mail plane to most villages was significantly higher.

The fact is that things can be done, and have been done at times, to make Bush locations more viable.

Unfortunately, when the big money actually began to role, and it was no longer a "theory" about how to spend it, but a practical matter... the State of Alaska stopped innovating in regard to the Bush and went on a maintenance only diet. We no longer had people like John Sackett, Vic Fischer, George Hohman and Jay Hammond elected to lead the Legislature, and instead we get Kott, Ben Stevens, and everyone else that money from Big Oil bought and paid for.

Returning to a subsistance lifestyle after being part of the cash economy isn't an answer either. There probably aren't more than a handfull of Alaska residents who lead anything like a true subsistance life anymore, and even those benefit from goods and services provided by their neighbors in the cash economy and from government subsidies in some form. So many idealists romanticise the idea without having a true impression of what is involved. The truth of the matter is that it involves nearly constant, hard, physical work. It's dangerous, even disregarding modern transportation like skiffs and snowmachines. It requires a level of knowledge of the natural world that's largely disappeared from use, since the elders who actually used to live that way are an increasingly rare asset. And the most disregarded factor of all is that if you fail or fall short, you starve, and your children starve. It's all fine and good to admire "living off the land" and "self-dependance" but what is the cost, and the consequences?

And you very obviously have one of those romantic persceptions of subsistence. Subsistence has always required the best technology available. Nothing has changed. And in fact most of Alaska's villages are, today, more based on subsistence than on a "cash economy".

Any question of "equitable treatment" in regards to government expenditures is going to be extremely complicated with multiple, opposing viewpoints. Do you define "equitable" as equal service, or equal expenditures towards providing the service?

It cannot be defined by equal expenditures, because that is not "equitable treatment".

Do you penalize urban residents by spending far more to provide services in rural areas?

Whoa! Providing basic services to rural areas does not in any way "penalize" urban residents. From a philosophical point of view, that is an absurd concept.

Do you penalize rural residents by just providing equal amounts of money per capita and disregarding their much higher cost to acquire services? There is no easy solution, and no matter how you cut the pie somebody is gonna be unhappy with their slice.

Ah, because you consider it a sliced pie! It isn't. It's multilayered cake. The problem is that if you are slicing it first, and then supporting luxery in one location and refuse to work on the basics in another, all based on a per capita slice, it is a model that generates a division between people to start with and eventually causes degeneration of the branch that is not supported (in this case, the Bush).

You can't divide up money per capita, throwing crumbs to half the state's residents, and have a viable result. For example 20-25 years after the oil money started to flow the State had done exactly nothing in regard to clean water and proper sewage treatment in most of Alaska. Finally Ted Stevens was embarassed enough (because the North Slope Borough decided to install facilities in every North Slope village) that he produced funding for at least a start in the rest of Alaska. Clean water... is a basic health issue that the State has never addressed for half the population of Alaska!

School maintenance is another basic issue that the State refuses to address because it doesn't generate votes for urban legislators. The State Constitution requires it, but nothing happens. And this issue shows how directly urban areas are linked to rural poorly served areas by this near sighted bias. No school maintenance in the Bush is a policy that also prevents adaquate funding for maintenance of the States' university system!

The problem is that we have been servicing Big Oil, not the residents of Alaska. I don't think the divide between Urban and Rural needs to be self distructive to both, but as long as those in urban areas elect Big Oil representation to the Legislature, it will continue to be exactly that.

Tell me... if a State grant is used to help fund a convention center, a museum, an art's center, or even a senior's center in Anchorage, do you hear complaints from Bush Alaska that they don't need it, that it isn't equitable, or any of the commonly heard noise if a sewage plant is proposed for a village?

When Bethel proposed building a Senior's Center, the State of Alaska balked, for all of those reasons. But it was quite okay to build it in Anchorage...

[bkyhi]

I'm seeing two nails and two hammers.

If most villages are located as they are for anything other than subsistance or resources then those living there do so by personal choice and whim. The question then is are they entitled to additional subsidies and help?

It appears that those places with resources are doing much better than those without. Resources are $$, not a whim.

If someone chooses to live remotely do they have the right to expect the same as someone who gives up the remoteness and moves close to an urban center?

Equitable treatment is a nice goal, but I'm beginning to believe an impractical one. Money will go (should go) where it serves the greatest number of people - the greater good. BUT not for luxury - an art museum is nice but unless it's purpose is to preserve native culture then it's a luxury.

AND I'm still not clear on "Bush Alaska". If this includes the North Slope then as a whole Bush Alaska is in pretty good shape as I see it. If you separate the North Slope apart then what is left may indeed be in a state of great difficulty and need.

I'm also confused as to why a village based primarily on subsistance is having much problems at all. What did these villages do before cars/snowmachines/oil ? Why can't that be done now?

Northword had a good post - two sides, old argument. When the going gets tough - the State will side with the greater numbers.

Oh, boy - my head was feeling much better and then I went and read this. Now I have a splitting headache again. I'm going to have to watch it in the future.

[Floyd_Davidson]

Originally Posted by bkyhi

I'm seeing two nails and two hammers.

Somebody tapped your head with that hammer Brian? This sounds like you're mostly seeing stars! :-)

If most villages are located as they are for anything other than subsistance or resources then those living there do so by personal choice and whim. The question then is are they entitled to additional subsidies and help?

If you count as "resources" those things necessary for survival today, then you've just included virtually all villages. Churches, stores, schools, family, etc. are all necessary resources. They are the reason people group together in one place. (There are others, and C-D Forum has a few people posting here who claim to be or want to be the kind of self sufficient homesteader that lives off by themselves. Note that they have lots of dreams and very little of it is ever implemented.)

It appears that those places with resources are doing much better than those without. Resources are $$, not a whim.

If someone chooses to live remotely do they have the right to expect the same as someone who gives up the remoteness and moves close to an urban center?

If someone was born in Elim, as were their ancestors for the past 2000 years, should they be required to move just because all the oil in Alaska at this point is on the North Slope? When the oil here is gone, should everyone who lives here now be required to move?

The Alaska Constitution makes it clear that the State is for the benefit of all Alaskans, not just those who happen to live where the money is generated today. (And note that Anchorage is not where the money is generated.) All of Alaska should benefit from production of oil in Alaska (or timber, or fish, or copper, or whatever if the State owns it).

Equitable treatment is a nice goal, but I'm beginning to believe an impractical one. Money will go (should go) where it serves the greatest number of people - the greater good. BUT not for luxury - an art museum is nice but unless it's purpose is to preserve native culture then it's a luxury.

Sure. That's what I've said too. But of course each person defines luxury and necessity in different ways... :-)

AND I'm still not clear on "Bush Alaska". If this includes the North Slope then as a whole Bush Alaska is in pretty good shape as I see it. If you separate the North Slope apart then what is left may indeed be in a state of great difficulty and need.

You need to rethink or restate that. It doesn't logically add up. You've seen exactly one village (the richest village in the entire State of Alaska) and say that means all villages are in "good shape"??? What does Barrow, with a budget for road maintenance that is higher than the entire city budget of Bethel, got to do with how well off people are in Lime Village???

I'm also confused as to why a village based primarily on subsistance is having much problems at all. What did these villages do before cars/snowmachines/oil ? Why can't that be done now?

People know that it isn't necessary to watch half of all babies die before they are 1 year old. People know that the State is supposed to provide an education for every child. People know that modern technology makes life better, and they aren't so dumb as to ignore that.