(upbeat country music)
- [Brad] Millennials are America's future,
and often its favorite punchline.
People say we're young,
but the oldest millennials are nearing 40.
People say we're dumb,
but we're the most educated generation ever.
And people say we're spoiled,
but we're the first generation in American history
who will be worse off financially than our parents.
We're traveling across the country
to find out how young Americans are surviving
and, in some cases, thriving.
I'm Brad Hunt and this is "American Paycheck."
In 2006 a massive oil boom in North Dakota
led tens of thousands of young people to the state
looking for their piece of the black gold rush.
- Young guy coming to North Dakota,
I think it's a great opportunity.
The kids can come out here, 18 years old
and work hard and learn something new.
They can make a lot of money.
- $26 an hour, I was working 18 hour days.
You make an $8,000 a month paycheck.
It was really good money.
- My first year in the oil field
I actually made over $100,000 in a matter of eight months
which was a lot of money for a young, dumb kid
that didn't know what he wanted to do with his life yet.
- My mom's a preschool teacher and I got my first tax return
and they took more taxes then she made that whole year.
That's pretty good for someone
not going to school or anything.
- [Brad] In the oil fields
people make money hand over fist.
So the hardest part isn't budgeting,
it's being away from their families
as they work on site two to three weeks at a time.
- Its like a brotherhood out here, your brother's keeper.
You know, my job is to make sure that the guy next to me,
that he gets to go home at the end of the day,
and after the two weeks so he can go home to his family.
- [Man] Camaraderie out here is,
it's kind of what gets you through.
I mean really, we spend more time with each other
than we do with our own families.
- The only thing I'm missing out on
is time with my kids when I'm gone.
Being gone for two weeks is the hardest part of this job.
- [Child] Akkil! (laughing)
- [Dad] What's up?
- [Mom] Aw, he's so happy to see you.
- I ain't seen you in a month, give me a hug.
- [Mom] You missed Daddy, huh?
- I missed you a lot.
I came to North Dakota for school.
I stayed out here after graduation because
it's a lot of opportunity out here with the oil field.
How was your day?
- Good, Dad. - It was good?
How was basketball?
- Good. - It was good?
We work roughly like 20 to like 30 days.
Being away from my family too long can get to you and like,
you can really get depressed, like starting to miss them.
So I'm from Miami, Florida and it's not the best area.
Growing up we struggled, my stepdad had three jobs,
my mom was working one.
Like, I didn't wanna live how I grew up
and I just seen the outcome and it was like,
"You gotta do better bro,"
'cause the way I was going it wasn't the best
and the way a lot of people went wasn't the best.
My big brother doing 10 years right now.
Just placing myself in a different environment
around people who were successful and I started to learn
and learn and push and that just gave me the eager
to really like, be successful and,
"Oh yeah y'all back there at home selling drugs and stuff
"I'm back here working the oil field."
Like, we both making money.
I'm making it legally, you're making it illegally.
It is kinda boring but it's like, it's so much money.
I'd rather be bored and make money
rather than drive myself through the wall
working like crazy and barely making ends meet.
My biggest financial concern right now
would just be student loans, really.
The money I made last year from working in the oil,
I paid off my debt, I'm just paying hers off.
The best part about living out here,
the crime rate is zero to none here.
But like, my biggest worry coming to North Dakota
was really just not being able to fit in.
Like I knew about hunting but when I came up here
I was like, "Y'all hunt deer?
"Oh shoot, like y'all get coyotes?"
I mean, that looked pretty cool.
And my buddy Mitch, he showed me how to duck hunt
and I was like, "What?
"Man, you gotta sign me up."
So like, the cost of living is a lot cheaper than in Florida
and the opportunity to really elevate
is bigger out here than it would be in Florida.
But I really don't want to work in oil
for more than five years,
and so I wanna just invest into a oil company,
so that I'm still making the oil money
but don't have to do the labor
and don't have to be around it.
- [Brad] Many left North Dakota after the bust of 2015
when the price of a barrel of oil
dropped from over $100 to just 30.
But the Rasmussen brothers stayed and invested their savings
to become oil field entrepreneurs,
and create a safer workplace for people on the rigs.
- It's really just working around the field
and knowing that hey, this was a lack of something
that was happening and we needed to fill that void
because nobody else was doing it and we seen an opportunity
to make the oil field a safer place.
- Our background is in pressure control equipment.
So like, I've done several different jobs
in the oil industry, I've worked on service rigs,
I worked as wellhead technician.
And so like I've been around pressure control equipment
my entire career, right, in the oil industry
since I was 18-- - All three of us have.
- I dropped out of high school and I started working
when I was 15 years old, 16 years old, you know.
I didn't want to be in school anymore
because I knew what I wanted to do, right.
And so, my first oil field job I worked 364 days,
I got one actual day off.
Working that much like, we kinda gotta
save up a lot of money, 'cause I was always working.
When we actually did have time off
that next following year, you know, like,
I just blew it on everything.
- Didn't you take $10,000 and just go rent a boat
for a week? - Yeah.
There's this thing, and we call it oil field rich, right.
The second you get your first oil field job,
you go out, you buy a lifted truck
and you start paying for all your friends to do things.
And we were renting boats, jet skis all that stuff.
And your money starts going quick, right?
And then when we really took
wanting to be an entrepreneur seriously,
that's when we started like,
"Okay we need to start saving our money
"and like, putting it away and putting it into stuff
"to make us money back."
- While they were out like, partying stuff like that,
I was always taking my money, and was like,
always putting it in those small businesses that I had.
Like we had a roofing company.
- And mooch it off of us. - Yeah.
- Totally mooching off these guys like all the time
you know what I mean, so, yeah like I really,
all my success is from my brothers.
- When we had the bust of 2015 and '16
nobody's working like a crapload
and, I hate to say this, but like
we were actually kinda weaning out the non-qualified people.
- People that were just here for a paycheck
and they didn't really care about the company
that you were working for or any of that stuff,
they were the ones that were first pushed out
and then they kept us local guys and kinda weaned out
the people that just didn't care about this place.
- The price of oil really determines
if their gonna punch new holes.
If the price is low, right, so that does impact
the oil industry a lot, right,
but there's still jobs out there
that have to maintain the oil industry.
- James was like, "Dude we could make a lot of money
"doing this, we could help the field out."
You know like, "Name one company
"that's actually doing it properly."
And we couldn't, you know.
It's like, well we have a dream, we're gonna achieve it,
we're gonna keep going until we do achieve it, you know.
And, for one, the main focus was safety of the oil field.
We wanted a safer oil field, that's why we started this.
Second thing was, was that, you know we had dreams
to like, help the community out in certain different ways.
That's how we're geared, so you know it's like,
"Oh, you're not gonna be rich overnight."
Well, we're not trying to be rich,
we're just trying to be successful.
- If we're looking at the big scheme of things,
yeah, I used to make, you know,
$10,000, $11,000 months over my other companies.
Here, I'm not making as much,
but we're still making a decent living, right.
It's a lot better as far as timewise.
I get to spend more time with my family,
you know, that's nice.
(gentle upbeat music)
- [Brad] In North Dakota, we saw one of the last bastions
of high-paying, blue collar work in this country.
- Its not about the money to me, its about the family.
- We're family out here and because we are out here
more than we are at home.
- [Brad] Will other industries grow
to provide the same opportunities for young people,
or will the oil fields stand alone?
Only time will tell, but for now,
all that matters is tomorrow's paycheck.