The Impact of the Pandemic on Native American Communities: Interview with Joseph Kalt

As COVID-19 tears across Indian Country, tribal governments are racing to meet not only the public health challenges caused by the pandemic, but are also grappling with the economic devastation left in its wake. To learn more about the economic crisis unfolding across Indian Country, the Ash Center spoke with Joe Kalt, the Ford Foundation Professor of International Political Economy, Emeritus and co-director of the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, which is housed at the Ash Center. Professor Kalt and his research colleagues at the Harvard Project recently sent a policy memo to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin outlining many of the unique economic challenges many of the nation’s 574 federally recognized tribes are facing during the COVID-19 outbreak.