American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) is a broad and diverse Census-defined racial category that includes Indigenous populations with origins in North America and South (including Central) America. Within the United States, American Indian or Native American is also a political identity defined by tribal citizenship. Of the nearly 8 million people who selected the AIAN racial category in the 2020 Census, more than half (4.9 million) did so in combination with another race. The vast majority of those who self-identify as AIAN alone reported American Indian (70.4%) or Latin American Indian (25%) heritage.
Relative to the 2010 Census, total multiple-race AIAN responses in the 2020 Census rose 240.6%, while single-race AIAN responses (AIAN alone) increased 37.2%. According to the Census Bureau, the increase in multiple-race AIAN responses is largely due to redesigned questions for race and ethnicity, which included a write-in option with examples of corresponding national origins for each racial or ethnic category. The agency also made improvements in data processing and coding to provide a more thorough and accurate accounting of the nation’s racial diversity. However, since Census racial categories are self-reported, AIAN population counts differ from official tribal enrollment records.
In 2022, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) began publishing monthly labor force estimates for AIAN workers over age 16, shedding new light on a historically invisible segment of the U.S. labor force. Comparable data are available back to 2003, including monthly unemployment rates, labor force participation rates, and employment-to-population ratios. While these statistics are available from BLS’s website, they are not included in the monthly jobs report and are less publicized than labor market statistics for other demographic groups.
This post helps to fill those gaps by analyzing whether record-high employment experienced by prime-age Black and Hispanic Americans in 2023—groups whose economic outcomes are most like American Indian and Alaska Natives—also reached prime-age AIAN workers. While BLS only reports single-race AIAN data, this analysis includes both AIAN alone (single race) and AIAN alone or in combination (combined single and multiple race) data series to provide fuller context. Over 60% of those who self-identify as AIAN report multiple races—a much higher rate than any other racial group—reflecting the centuries-long impact of colonization on Indigenous populations. Therefore, some argue that the single-race category frequently used by federal agencies and researchers is too restrictive to accurately represent the breadth of the AIAN population. In 2023, single-race AIAN workers were 1.1% of the U.S. labor force while combined single- and multiple-race AIAN workers accounted for 2.0%.
Figure A presents annual estimates of the share of AIAN population ages 25–54 with a job—the prime-age employment-to-population ratio (PA EPOP) between 2003 and 2023. These years capture employment trends during the downturns and recoveries for the Great Recession and the pandemic recession. Across these years, the single-race AIAN prime-age population was employed at slightly lower rates than the combined AIAN prime-age population. While the two data series generally move in the same direction, they diverged in 2023. Though neither series shows a record-high 2023 PA EPOP as conclusive as those for Black and Hispanic prime-age workers, a few observations are worth highlighting.
First, pandemic policy interventions helped to prevent the much larger decline in prime-age AIAN employment that occurred during the Great Recession. That policy response also fueled a faster recovery that allowed employment to rebound within the range of the highest rates on record for AIAN workers. Among the more inclusive AIAN alone or in combination population, PA EPOP increased every year after 2020 and reached 73.1% in 2023, slightly below the 2019 peak of 73.7%. In 2022, PA EPOP for the AIAN alone population reached 71.9%—the highest rate among comparable data years going back to 2003—but dipped slightly to 71.1% in 2023. Given the smaller sample size for the AIAN alone population, this dip in 2023 could reflect noise in the data rather than a true change in employment.
Second, the single-race AIAN population is more geographically concentrated than those who report more than one race. For example, more than half of the American Indian alone population (the largest AIAN group) is concentrated across five states (Oklahoma, Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas), whereas for the American Indian alone or in combination population, the five states with the highest concentrations account for just 36.1% of the population. Therefore, labor market outcomes for single-race AIAN workers are largely shaped by labor market conditions in a smaller group of states than are outcomes for multiple-race AIAN workers. Across the five states where more than half of the American Indian alone population is concentrated, most have generally employed a smaller share of their total prime-age population compared with the national average.
Prime-age employment-to-population ratios, 2003–2023
| Year | AIAN alone | AIAN alone or in any combination |
|---|---|---|
| 2003 | 71.2% | 72.7% |
| 2004 | 69.3% | 71.8% |
| 2005 | 69.3% | 71.8% |
| 2006 | 70.9% | 72.3% |
| 2007 | 71.5% | 72.9% |
| 2008 | 70.3% | 70.9% |
| 2009 | 63.6% | 66.2% |
| 2010 | 62.0% | 65.0% |
| 2011 | 62.9% | 64.9% |
| 2012 | 66.8% | 67.7% |
| 2013 | 63.4% | 66.6% |
| 2014 | 66.3% | 67.8% |
| 2015 | 67.8% | 68.6% |
| 2016 | 68.6% | 69.6% |
| 2017 | 69.0% | 71.3% |
| 2018 | 70.0% | 73.1% |
| 2019 | 71.3% | 73.7% |
| 2020 | 65.5% | 67.2% |
| 2021 | 69.1% | 70.5% |
| 2022 | 71.9% | 72.1% |
| 2023 | 71.1% | 73.1% |
Note: AIAN refers to American Indian and Alaska Native. Data includes Hispanic or Latino people who identify as AIAN. Prime age refers to ages 25 to 54.
Source: Economic Policy Institute analysis of Current Population Survey basic monthly microdata from EPI Microdata Extracts, Version 1.0.57 (2024); https://microdata.epi.org.
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