Defense and security articles
What does the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) do?
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is a cabinet-level executive branch agency responsible for providing healthcare services, benefits programs, and access to national cemeteries for the nation's veterans and their dependents. It was established as the Veterans Administration in 1930 and elevated to cabinet status in 1989.
Who are the nation’s veterans?
The population of living veterans in the US — nearly 16 million people — is both shrinking in size and growing more diverse. What is a veteran, and who is considered one? Title 38 of the United States Code defines a veteran as “a person who served in the active military, naval, or air service, and who was discharged or released therefrom under conditions other than dishonorable.” The code also outlines who qualifies for veteran status beyond active duty to include service members such as reservists, members of the National Guard, cadets and midshipmen at military academies, commissioned officers outside the Armed Forces, and those in training for military service. The Department of Veteran Affairs is responsible for determining veteran status and maintaining veteran benefit eligibility. What is a protected veteran? The Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974 prohibits discrimination against certain veterans. Protected veterans meet the Title 38 qualifications but are afforded additional consideration due to disability, recent discharge, participation in wartime, or service recognition.
How does the government support veterans?
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) spent over $266 billion in fiscal year 2022 — accounting for about 4.3% of all federal spending — on pay and pensions, healthcare, and education for the nation’s veterans.How does the Department of Veterans Affairs spend its budget?The majority of VA expenditures fund veterans’ compensation and pensions (50.5% of VA spending) and medical care services (38.9%).A veteran’s eligibility for pensions and compensation depends on factors such as their age, service, and disability status. More than 5.9 million veterans and their families received financial support from the disability compensation program in 2022, one of the VA’s most-accessed programs.The VA also provides veterans with free healthcare for conditions related to military service, for catastrophic disabilities, and for veterans with a disability rating of at least 50%. (The VA assigns veterans a numerical rating based on the severity of their service-connected disability; this rating determines their’ eligibility for benefits and the amount of their compensation.) The department also provides financial assistance to veterans who can’t afford to pay for healthcare. In 2022, the VA spent $104 billion on veterans’ medical care.Spending per patient varies depending on the veterans’ priority group, which triages patients based on the severity of their disability or medical condition and whether the condition is related to their service.
How is the standard of living changing for veterans?
Veterans’ standard of living in 2023 was slightly better than the average American when measured by higher median incomes, lower unemployment rates, and a reduced likelihood of poverty.How many veterans are unemployed?In 2023, 2.8% of veterans — around 241,000 people — were unemployed, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The veteran population had a lower unemployment rate than non-veterans (3.6%). Of all Americans, veteran and not, younger people tend to have the highest unemployment rate. This is true for veterans aged 18 to 24, whose unemployment rate of 7.8% is more than double the general veteran average. Veterans with a service-related disability also had a higher unemployment rate; it stood at 6.0% as of August 2023.
How has military enlistment changed?
Military enlistment fell for 40 years and hit a low in 2022. But that decline could be reversing: in October 2024 the Defense Department announced that an estimated 146,473 people enlisted in the US armed forces in FY 2024, up 14% from FY 2022.
How many people have died in the US military, and how?
According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, between 1775 and 1991, the US military recorded 651,031 battle deaths and 539,054 non-combat deaths, totaling 1.19 million fatalities.Record-keeping has become more efficient in recent years. From 1980 to 2022, there were 60,770 recorded deaths, of which 50,789 (or 83.6%) were due to accidents, illness, and self-inflicted wounds.
Sexual assault reports increased 28% at US military academies in 2022
A recent Department of Defense report found that reports of sexual assault across the nation’s military academies increased 28% between the 2020–21 and 2021–22 school years. Of the 206 reports, 83% were from enrolled cadets and midshipmen, while the rest were made by academy graduates or civilians. The increase appears to be driven by rising unwanted sexual contact for academy men and women, as well as a higher likelihood to report incidents: reporting rates were up 2 percentage points compared to the 2017–18 school year.
How much does the US spend on the Space Force?
On December 20, 2019, the United States Space Force (USSF) became the sixth branch of the US military with the passing of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020. It was the first new branch since the US Air Force was established in 1947.Nine months later, on September 1, 2020, the Space Force inducted its first class of deployed Guardians, as they are called. Twenty members of the US Air Force trained in space operations and other core space career fields transferred to the new branch, making them the first Space Force members engaged in support of combat operations.What does the Space Force do?Housed within the Air Force, Space Force operates as its own department with its own duties. They are: to protect the interests of the United States in space; to deter aggression in, from, and to space; and to conduct space operations in service of America’s national security.Just as the US Navy protects the country at sea, space is its own domain. This includes civilian, commercial, and military activity — think civilian space travel and exploration, commercial satellite technology, and cyber warfare. The Space Force is charged with protecting and defending American military capabilities and economic interests in the space realm.The Space Force is differentiated from NASA, which is the United States’ civilian space agency. NASA astronauts and scientists are dedicated to space exploration and scientific discovery. There is crossover between the military and NASA, however. Many NASA employees are veterans. For example, NASA’s first class of astronauts, the Mercury 7, were all military test pilots.Where does the Space Force spend its budget?The five-year plan for establishing the Space Force includes creating a headquarters within the Pentagon (fiscal year 2020), transferring select missions and units to the USSF (FY 2021–2022), and eventually developing new ways to organize, train, and equip its forces (2023–2024).In 2020, funding went towards the operation to establish its headquarters. This ramp up period allowed the USSF to establish the necessary “policies, procedures, and systems to operate.”In 2021, funding expanded with the transfer of missions, forces, and programs that had been planned to begin one year after its establishment. This year’s budget included procurement as well as research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E), which constituted 67% of the total budget proposal. The 2024 budget request is similarly allocated with 64% of the Space Force budget covering RDT&E.Since the Defense Department has identified China and Russia as looming threats to US space capabilities, the department plans to focus next year’s efforts on building “resilient, ready, combat-credible space forces” by “accelerating the pivot towards resilient satellite constellations, ground stations, networks and data links,” Saltzman said.The Space Force budget continues to increase. In 2020, it received $40 million for establishing operations. In 2021, as the branch became fully operational, it received $15.4 billion in total funding. Two years later, this amount was nearly doubled at $26.3 billion.
How many military spouses are employed by the federal government?
The federal government employs over 16,000 military, veteran, and surviving spouses as of 2023, per the White House.There were over 578,000 spouses of active-duty service members in the US military as of 2022, according to the Department of Defense (DoD). About 7.2% of them were active duty military members themselves.What is the military spouse unemployment rate?The DoD's Survey of Active-Duty Spouses found that the unemployment rate among the civilian spouses of active-duty military members was 21% in 2021. This is nearly four times the overall unemployment rate of 5.3% that year.