Service-Connected Disability and Poverty Among US Veterans

Abstract

Abstract This chapter examines Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) service-connected disability (SCD) status and poverty among US veterans using data from the 2019 American Community Survey (ACS). Participation in the US Armed Forces simultaneously entails occupational exposure to military harm and access to military capital. SCD is different from other forms of adult-onset and occupationally acquired disability because it connects veterans who have an SCD to an array of federally funded benefits that are unavailable to non-veterans and veterans without an SCD. Because access to these resources does not preclude employment, SCD may not have the same association with poverty as early-onset disability and other kinds of adult-onset, occupationally acquired disability. This chapter argues that it is the combination of VA benefits and earnings in the civilian labor market that contributes to the apparent advantage that veterans with SCD have with respect to poverty reduction. For example, veterans with an SCD rating of 70% or higher: receive the highest VA disability compensation; participate in the civilian labor force at modest levels (one-third are employed, and 28% work fifty to fifty-two weeks per year); and have the lowest rate of poverty relative to other groups of veterans, with and without SCD, and non-veterans. Generally, sociologists who study disability and socioeconomic outcomes have not taken veterans and SCD into account. Greater collaboration between sociologists who study disability and sociologists who study the life-course consequences of military service would be beneficial.