Data from the 2010 Census indicates Iowa’s Native American population grew 27 percent in the last decade. 

Census-takers found just over 11,000 Native Americans in Iowa. Just over a thousand were living in the Meskwaki Settlement near Tama, and the Census found 7.5 percent of the population in Tama County is Native American.

However, nearly one-in-five of the Native Americans in Iowa are part of the Sioux Nation and 20 percent of the Native Americans in Iowa live in the Sioux City area. The Census found members of the Cherokee, Chippewa, Winnebago and Omaha in Iowa as well.

A much larger percentage of Native Americans choose the military than the population at large. Almost 750 of the Native Americans in Iowa are serving in the military or are veterans. That’s almost seven percent of the entire Native American population in Iowa.

Data from the 2010 Census indicates the poverty rate for Native Americans in Iowa is three times higher than Iowa’s population as a whole.  The 2010 Census concluded Iowa’s poverty rate was nearly 12 percent, compared to the 39 percent poverty rate for the Native Americans who live in Iowa.

The unemployment rate among Iowa’s Native Americans was over 10 percent when the Census was taken last year — six percent higher than Iowa’s overall unemployment rate. Census-takers estimated the median income for Native Americans was about $17,000 less than the overall median household income in Iowa.

About a third of Native Americans in Iowa own their home, compared to a 72 percent home-ownership rate for the entire state.