I will try to give a brief look at the Economy in Dickinson, in March 2016, using people that I know as examples.

I was making very little money working two jobs in Dickinson this winter, so I got a third job working in Watford City.  I was very lucky to get this job, jobs are scarce.

A friend of mine in Dickinson that I have known for two years, this winter was the poorest and most financially desperate he has been in the past eight years.  I got him a job working with me in Watford City.  He was very lucky to get this job, jobs are scarce.

A friend of mine in Dickinson that I have known since 2011, who has a CDL and does construction work, he became completely broke and had to return to Wyoming in November of 2015.  He could not get another job in Dickinson.

A college educated friend of mine who has lived in Dickinson since 2008, he left Dickinson in December of 2015, due to lack of professional work prospects.

An electrician who I have known in Dickinson since 2013, he had been doing well financially in 2014 and 2015, now he is very nearly broke.  Not a lot of work prospects for him.

At the Church that I was going to, there are three truck drivers, each with a wife and kids.  One truck driver had lost his job in October and has not been able to get another one.  A second truck driver has been expecting to lose his job any day now for the past two months, the company he is working for is going out of business.  About 5% of the Church members have left the state since October due to lack of work.

A friend of mine who I have known since 2011, co-founded a trucking company in Dickinson in 2012.  His trucking company went out of business by the end of 2014.  He has been broke since the Spring of 2015.

To date, the only oil field worker that I have ever met, that I know now, who is not broke or nearly broke, is a wireline operator whose wife is a nurse.  He and his wife own moderate vehicles, and they live in an older townhouse.  He has been out of work for nine months, but his wife is still employed as a nurse.