Alaska’s Money Blizzard May End With Plunge in Price of Oil
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Alaska is poised to alter its social contract with people like Paul Alexie for the first time in its 56-year statehood.
Oil riches have ensured that the 23-year-old Yupik Eskimo from Bethel doesn’t pay state sales or income taxes. Instead, Alaska pays him. He’ll use $2,072 that lands in his bank account today to defray $8 gallons of milk, $6 gasoline and a monthly $800 heating bill.