Veterans’ jobless rate falls but remains high, By Gregg Zoroya, January 6, 2013, USA Today: “Soaring unemployment that has bedeviled Iraq- and Afghanistan-era veterans for five years has finally reversed. The jobless rate dropped to an annual average of 9.9% last year from 12.1% in 2011, labor statistics show. ‘It looks like it peaked in 2011 and has since been coming down,’ says James Borbely, an economist for the Bureau of Labor Statistics who studies veteran data. ‘We’re looking at a rate that has clearly improved.’ Veteran advocates caution that joblessness among this group remains stubbornly high — well above the national unemployment rate of 7.8%. About 205,000 of those who served in or during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are without work…”
Tag: Military service
Homeless Veterans in the US
Veteran homeless drops 7 percent, VA says, By Steve Vogel, December 10, 2012, Washington Post: “The number of homeless veterans in the United States counted on a single night this year declined 7.2 percent from the previous year, a reduction significantly higher than that seen in the general population, according to figures released Monday. Overall, the number of homeless people in the country declined only slightly, to 633,782 counted on a single night in January, about 0.4 percent lower than the previous year. The figures included a 1.4 percent increase in homeless people who are part of households that have at least one adult and one child…”
Homelessness Among Veterans
Number of homeless veterans dropping notably, but major hurdles remain in solving the problem, Associated Press, November 12, 2012, Washington Post: “Arthur Lute’s arduous journey from his days as a U.S. Marine to his nights sleeping on the streets illustrates the challenge for the Obama administration to fulfill its promise to end homelessness among veterans by 2015. Lute has post-traumatic stress disorder from the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon. He spent years drifting through jobs, two years in prison for assault, then 15 months sleeping in the bushes outside the police department of this city south of San Diego. Today, he lives in a $1,235 a month, two-bedroom apartment in a working-class neighborhood. The federal government pays nearly 80 percent of the rent and mostly covers the cost of medicines for his depression, high blood pressure, and other health problems. State-funded programs pay for doctor’s appointments for his 6-month-old son and therapy for his wife, who he said is bipolar…”