Every day, millions of Americans get out of bed, get ready, and go to work, spending their whole day working to provide their family with necessary income. The American economy is built on hard work on the part of individuals. However, members of the Shakopee Mdewakanton Native American tribe live a very different lifestyle. “We have 99.2 percent unemployment,” Stanley R. Crooks, the tribe’s president, said as he smiled during a rare interview. “It’s entirely voluntary.” Members of this tribe receive just over $1 million annually from the tribe’s casino profits, without ever having to work to provide a good or service. Their economy is built on the profits of gamblers, and little more. There is no economy in the entire world that functions like this- where no one has to produce anything of value to reap millions. That is because it is an unsustainable  economic plan, as can be seen in this article from The New York Times which documents the group’s fear of recent attempts to restrict casino gambling, which would leave the tribe with essentially no source of income.

2012 One Million Each Year for All as Long as Tribe Luck Holds