Veteran Unemployment of Transitioning Marines

Given high veteran unemployment rates and the continuing military drawdown, on November 21, 2011, President Obama committed to helping servicemembers successfully transition to the civilian workforce by signing the VOW To Hire Heroes Act. To help fulfill the President’s commitment, the services were directed to identify the types of servicemembers who were collecting unemployment benefits.

At that time, the Marine Corps’ Marine & Family Programs Division (MF) asked CNA to create a demographic profile of Marines who have a high likelihood of collecting Unemployment Compensation for Ex-Servicemembers (UCX). In addition, and separate from the UCX analysis, MF asked CNA to create a demographic profile of Marines who have a high probability of using Montgomery GI Bill (MGIB) benefits.

In this annotated briefing, we present the characteristics of recent Marine Corps separators, UCX recipients and nonrecipients, and MGIB recipients and nonrecipients. Next, we identify which demographic and service-related characteristics help to predict whether a separating Marine will draw UCX after separation, where the distinction is “collected UCX” versus “did not collect UCX.” Then, we identify which demographic and service-related characteristics help to predict whether a separating Marine will use his or her MGIB benefits, where the distinction is “used MGIB” versus “did not use MGIB.” To conclude, we present discovered inefficiencies and areas for future research.