The Big Empty

Searching the region for available jobs, I have cast a net across a five state area including the Dakotas, Montana, Wyoming and Minnesota. The lack of jobs in the four states outside Minnesota has become apparent when there seem to be more jobs there than all the other states combined. It comes down to demographics, The four states outside Minnesota have a population of roughly 3,282,000 while Minnesota sits at an estimated 5.6 million. This is almost double the four states combined. The land area of the four states outside of Minnesota is a little bigger than Texas, yet has a population of roughly 3.28 million which is almost exactly the same as the Twin Cities metropolitan area in Minnesota. If you subtract the 5 urban areas, right on the border of Minnesota and the Dakotas with a rough combined population of 546,000, the population of this vast land area drops to 2.7 million.