...estimate that 52.3 percent in the reservation's Shannon County and 39.2 percent in adjacent Bennett County were...poverty line. They estimated the median income of Shannon County households to be less than one-third the national...

...hard here,'' he says simply. It is an understatement. Pine Ridge is one of the poorest patches in America. Shannon County has a median income of $11,000, almost $20,000 under the national median. Diabetes, alcohol and traffic accidents...