fixing this problem?
The Costs are Real
The reality is this bleak employment outlook for military spouses creates a culture of underemployment that costs the Department of Defense and the country dearly. A 2010 RAND study showed 42% of military spouses were not in the labor force. Add the previously mentioned 38% underemployment rate to an 18% unemployment rate, and it creates a problem where a large majority of spouses aren’t contributing to the country through earnings and income tax. That lost opportunity is actually a burden to the US economy and should create a sense of urgency regarding a need to remedy the problem.
When you break down the total lost income tax, unemployment benefits, and total health costs associated with unemployment, the unrealized bill it creates is absolutely astonishing. Experts estimate that the total estimated cost of military spouse underemployment is somewhere between $710,344,000 and $1,068,508,000. A little alarming, right?!
This may be a shocking price tag, but the costs don’t stop there.
The other costs of military spouse underemployment may be less easily measured on a survey, but anyone in the military community knows they are real. One of them is the correlation between overall life satisfaction for military spouses (and family members) and service member retention rates. As a spouse, I can tell you for a fact that the statement, “a happy wife equals a happy life” rings true when it comes to longevity of service.
In the 2016 Military Family Lifestyle Survey by Blue Star Families, the top three concerns reported by spouses, active-duty members and veterans alike were “military pay/benefits,” “change in retirement benefits,” and “military spouse employment.” The study went on to mention that the three most common reasons people left the military were military retirement (inevitable), completion of service obligation (also inevitable), and family reasons. Retirements and fulfilled commitments are inevitable and hard to control. But “family reasons” are very much within our control.
When spouses are satisfied with their work/life situation, they are much more likely to encourage and help their service member to continue their career in the military. In a blog post titled “Reflections in the Rearview Mirror,” milpreneur and writer Angela Uebelacker describes being a military spouse and the challenges it brings to raising a family. She perfectly describes it as being “simply not that simple.”
In fact, studies done on the civilian population show there is a direct correlation between employment and individual well-being. As the size of the overall military continues to dwindle and the operations tempo of deployments continues to remain intense, military spouse employment and its effect on retention will only increase in importance.
The other hidden cost is that of mental health. A life filled with military rigors inevitably gives way to things like depression, loneliness, addictions, and sometimes even suicide. Statistics tell us that twenty-two veterans commit suicide every day. Unfortunately, the statistics for spouses and family members are not as closely tracked. But based on the frequency of other indicators, like calls to helplines and medical data, we know that mental health issues and suicides in family members have also increased as the operations tempo of the military has remained high through more than a decade of war.
Unfortunately, openness and honesty about suffering from mental illness is not highly looked upon within the military community. In fact, 41% of active-duty respondents in the 2016 Blue Star Families Survey said that they were uncomfortable seeking out mental health care from a provider in the military system. Additionally, 40% of survey participants felt that if they sought out mental health care programs or services, it could potentially harm their career.
Finally, we have to recognize that under- and unemployment rates are not just gee-whiz facts for many military families. They are a matter of survival. According to Blue Star Families, 47% of military families had two income-earning parents, which is significantly lower than the general US population, among whom 66% of households have two incomes. As the cost of living rises, more and more military families need the extra income to survive. A 2014 article by ABC News indicated that over five thousand active-duty military families are eligible for food stamps. Low-ranking enlisted families are the most at risk of falling prey to financial burdens without a reliable second income; however, even as the family of a mid-level officer, we had our own struggles in surviving on a single income.
After I left active duty, we were just barely able to cover the cost of our average California home mortgage. Given that at the time we bought our house in 2007, real estate prices had inflated to all-time highs, there was certainly no room in our budget for niceties like traveling, entertainment, or eating out. I remember I would panic at night thinking about any sort of catastrophe that would cost us more than a few hundred dollars, because we didn’t have any extra cash to scrounge up should that situation arise.
To pass the time with as little spending as possible, I made it a game every day to take my two young kids on outings each day that cost no more than five dollars total. We had to get creative, but we eventually found our fun at the public library, the cheapest bakery in town, and in free public parks. I’m proud of the way we mustered through, but the extra stress and tension surrounding our finances during that timeframe is not something I’d ever wish on anyone, much less on someone whose sole focus should be on protecting our country.
The Answer Is Outside the Box
Thank goodness I’m hard-headed when it comes to getting something I want. In the case of my employment, I was determined to find the right kind of employment that would help me avoid the mental health traps I saw around me and to find something that worked around my family’s needs, despite the fact that I had few examples of successfully employed spouses around me.
Once I realized that the answer was not in a traditional job, I became like a dog with a bone when it came to pursuing my business ideas. I didn’t listen to the naysayers who second-guessed my decision. I put my head down, got determined, and found a way to make progress happen each and every day. If I hadn’t been so hard-headed and determined, I may have ended up unemployed, unfulfilled, and bitter after years of frustrating attempts to find meaningful work.
When I began my hunt for the perfect, flexible job, I quickly realized that traditional jobs wanted traditional employees. The kind of employees that can be relied on for years. The kind who don’t move away. And the kind that don’t have lives filled with uncertainty like deployments, single parenthood, and extra stress. The traditional world of work sees our military “baggage” as something that makes us less desirable. After watching military spouses continue to unsuccessfully try to fit the mold of traditional jobs, I quickly came to the conclusion that our non-traditional lives will never fit the traditional mold. So why do we keep trying to fit our military square peg in the traditional round hole?
I began thinking. What if we took a step back and stopped feeling apologetic for the fact that we don’t fit into the traditional work world, and embraced the lessons and blessings we’ve learned through our non-traditional lives? Perhaps the answer to the underemployment problem was not in the traditional work world at all. What if we took a clue from our grandparents, and took our employment destinies into our own hands? Not as employees, but rather as employers—entrepreneurs!
From Boots to Business
The concept of connecting business ownership to the military community is not a new one. In fact, my grandfather’s story was just one of many from his era. According to the Institute for Veterans and Military Families at Syracuse University, after WWII, 49% of veterans started businesses with financial encouragement from the GI Bill. This carried through the Korean War where 40% of veterans continued the small business start-up tradition.
