Oil and agriculture change ND fortunes

FARGO, N.D. (AP) — The oil boom and high agricultural prices have changed North Dakota's fortunes in the past decade.

The Forum newspaper reports that North Dakota was losing particularly its young people in the 1990s.

But the state's population increased 6.6 percent between the 2000 census and the estimate for 2011 as people moved to North Dakota for jobs. The state's per-capita income also jumped from less than $26,000 in 2000 to more than $47,000 in 2011.

Richard Rathge, a demographer at North Dakota State University, says the so-called brain drain the state once suffered from losing its educated young people has been reversed. In 2011, North Dakota's net migration gain was more than 30,000.

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