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Jobless Rate Rises for Post 9/11 Veterans in January

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unemployment

By Debbie Gregory.

In 2011, Congress passed and President Obama signed into law a program giving employers tax credits to encourage veteran employment. Other programs also have encouraged companies and government agencies to hire veterans.

In spite of those efforts, the unemployment rate for the youngest generation of veterans jumped to 6.3 percent in January, the fourth time in the last seven months that group’s figure has been substantially higher than the overall veteran rate.

The figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which reflect the last month of President Barack Obama’s time in office, represent about 211,000 Iraq and Afghanistan era veterans looking for work. That’s almost 46 percent of the total of all U.S. veterans filing for unemployment benefits in January.

Young veterans, the ones between the ages of 18 and 34, face challenges in the employment marketplace that non-veterans never have to face and that older veterans have already overcome.

In many cases, it is hard to translate the work that was done in the service to a civilian equivalence. There are also few calls for riflemen, artillery spotters, missile technicians and many other military positions.

The January 2017 veteran unemployment rate was 4.5 percent, compared to the non-veteran rate of 5.0 percent. In December, the Iraq and Afghanistan era veterans’ rate was 5.7 percent.

With additional training and responsibility, the unemployment rate of young veterans should be lower than the rest of the population. That’s why the higher number of unemployed younger veterans does raise concerns.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics officials estimate that nearly 9.8 million veterans are in the U.S. workforce today, with roughly 32 percent of them having served in the military after 2001.

Military Connection salutes and proudly serves veterans and service members in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, Guard and Reserve,  and their families.

 

Mil Vet Employees at Starbucks Respond to Call for Boycott

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starbucks hiring

By Debbie Gregory.

President Trump’s executive order banning travel from seven Muslim-majority countries prompted Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz to announce that the company would hire 10,000 refugees in the 75 countries where it does business, with the effort starting in the United States.

The announcement prompted a backlash on social media with several people using the hashtag BoycottStarbucks to urge customers to stay away from its stores. Some users also posted screenshots of them deleting the company’s app on their phones.

But veterans who work at Starbucks have something to say to those insisting the coffee company should hire veterans instead of refugees: “Check your facts, Starbucks is already there.”

Members of the Starbucks Armed Forces Network wrote, “We respect honest debate and the freedom of expression. Many of us served to protect that very right. Some of our brothers and sisters died protecting it,” in its message. “But to those who would suggest Starbucks is not committed to hiring veterans, we are here to say: check your facts, Starbucks is already there.”

Starbucks Armed Forces Network was founded in 2007 to bring partners who served in the military together to bond over their shared experiences, to provide guidance for newly hired partners transitioning from military to civilian life and to create a veteran-friendly workforce.

In 2013, Starbucks made a pledge to hire 10,000 veterans and veteran spouses by 2018. The company has hired 8,800 U.S. veterans and military spouses already as part of its pledge, and said it would reach its veteran hiring target earlier than expected and would continue hiring more.

CEO Schultz and his wife, Sheri, have visited military bases, used their personal wealth to help with plans for service members coming back from active duty, established military family stores at more than 30 bases around the country and encouraged Starbucks senior leaders to visit military bases.

Military Connection salutes and proudly serves veterans and service members in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, Guard and Reserve,  and their families.

Army Awards Service Pistol Contract to Sig Sauer

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sig

By Debbie Gregory.

Firearms manufacturer Sig Sauer has won a contract to make the next service pistol based on the company’s P320 handgun.

The U.S. Army has selected the SIG SAUER Model P320 to replace the M9 service pistol currently in use since the mid-1980’s. Released in 2014, the P320 is a polymer striker-fired pistol that has proven itself in both the United States and worldwide markets. The P320 is the first modular pistol with interchangeable grip modules that can also be adjusted in frame size and caliber by the operator.

There was tough competition for the Modular Handgun System (MHS) contract, worth $580 million, between Sig Sauer, Glock Inc., FN America and Beretta USA.

The 10-year agreement calls for Sig to supply the Army with both compact and full-size versions of the gun.

The firearms will be manufactured at Sig Sauer’s New Hampshire facility.

Ron Cohen, President and CEO of SIG SAUER, said “We are both humbled and proud that the P320 was selected by the U.S. Army as its weapon of choice. Securing this contract is a testimony to SIG SAUER employees and their commitment to innovation, quality and manufacturing the most reliable firearms in the world.”

The decision formally ends the Beretta’s 30-year hold on the Army’s sidearm market. In December 2014, Beretta USA submitted its modernized M9A3 as a possible alternative to the Army’s Modular Handgun System program.

But the Army rejected the improved M9A3, which featured new sights, a rail for mounting lights and accessories, better ergonomics and improved reliability. The company, however, wasn’t finished yet. It developed a new striker-fired pistol, the APX, and entered it into the competition.

The Army began working with the small arms industry on Modular Handgun System in early 2013, but the joint effort has been in the works for more than five years. It could result in the Defense Department buying nearly 500,000 new pistols.

Current plans call for the Army to purchase more than 280,000 handguns, according to Program Executive Office Soldier officials. The Army also plans to buy approximately 7,000 sub-compact versions of the handgun.

The other military services participating in the program may order an additional 212,000 systems above the Army quantity.

Military Connection salutes and proudly serves veterans and service members in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, Guard and Reserve,  and their families.

New Blended Retirement Plan Coming Soon

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military blended

By Debbie Gregory.

In February, the primary tool to introduce the blended retirement system (BRS) to active and reserve component service members will be a two-hour online course that explains features and compares potential lifetime values with the legacy “High-3” retirement plan. They also will have access to a new online calculator to compare BRS with High-3 using age, years expected to serve, planned contributions to Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) with government matching (a key feature of BRS), historic rates of return on TSP investment options, personal tolerance for investment risk and more.

Now if that first paragraph made your eyes glaze over, financial guru Suze Orman wants to help.

Orman has recently formed an educational partnership with the Army, one that is accessible to all service members on SuzeU.com. Using the coupon code “USA” the program, which typically costs $54, is free for troops using the code.

Orman wants those in the military to protect their money as aggressively as they do the nation.

Servicemembers  with less than 12 years of active duty service and National Guard and Reserve members with less than 4,320 points will have until Dec. 31, 2018 to choose whether to remain in the current system or opt into the new one. The new blended retirement system is a three-pronged program.

Prong 1 consists of a defined pension benefit upon retirement. Prong 2 consists of a Thrift Savings Plan (TSP), which is similar to a 401K plan. And Prong 3 is a one-time continuation payment for Soldiers with eight to 12 years of service.

Orman said the military is moving to BRS for the same reason most companies have trimmed or replaced their defined pension plans with employer contributions to portable 401k plans: It saves them money.

“If you’re smart and you let me teach you, I can show you how you can have more money [with BRS] than if you stayed with the simple legacy system,” Orman said.

Military Connection salutes and proudly serves veterans and service members in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, Guard and Reserve,  and their families.

 

One China Policy to Stand

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one china

By Debbie Gregory.

It took nearly three weeks for President Trump to contact Chinese President Xi Jinping, but in the call Trump affirmed the “One China” policy that Beijing insists upon with regard to Taiwan, but which Trump in December was threatening to ignore.

In a statement, the White House said Mr. Trump and Mr. Xi “discussed numerous topics, and President Trump agreed, at the request of President Xi, to honor our One China policy.” It described the call as “extremely cordial” and said the leaders had invited each other to visit.

Trump’s December phone call with Tsai Ing-wen, the president of Taiwan, hinted that the United States might no longer abide by the One China policy.

The Chinese state news media said that Mr. Trump had “stressed that he fully understood the great importance for the U.S. government to respect the One China policy,” and that “the U.S. government adheres to the One China policy.”

It also said the two leaders had agreed on the “necessity and urgency of strengthening cooperation between China and the United States.”

On February 14th, the government of China awarded Trump the valuable rights to his own name in the form of a 10-year trademark for construction services.

After a decade spent trying to gain the rights to his name back from a man named Dong Wei, the move has raised questions about the extent to which his political status may be helping his family business.

Over the past decade, Trump has lodged 126 trademark applications in China for the TRUMP name, on everything from pet-care products to computer software to lingerie to golf clubs, according to records at the Trademark Office. Some 77 have been registered, while 49 remain pending.

Military Connection salutes and proudly serves veterans and service members in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, Guard and Reserve,  and their families.

National Security Turmoil

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flynn

By Debbie Gregory.

The Trump administration, just three weeks in, seems to be an exercise in chaos.

Michael T. Flynn has resigned his post as the national security adviser after it emerged that the Justice Department informed the White House that it believed Flynn could be subject to blackmail.

The resignation also came after previous disclosures that Flynn had misled Vice President Mike Pence and other senior officials about his communications with Sergey Kislyak, Russia’s ambassador to the United States. Pence repeated the misinformation in television appearances.

“Unfortunately, because of the fast pace of events, I inadvertently briefed the Vice President Elect and others with incomplete information regarding my phone calls with the Russian Ambassador. I have sincerely apologized to the President and the Vice President, and they have accepted my apology,” Flynn said in his resignation letter.

Flynn does have supporters, however, with some Russian lawmakers coming to his defense.

Alexey Pushkov, a senator with the United Russia party, which supports President Vladimir Putin, said Flynn was “forced to go” because of “paranoia.” Pushkov also labeled the incident a “witch hunt.”

Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee — which is investigating the Trump campaign’s alleged contacts with Russia — said Flynn’s resignation was “all but ordained the day he misled the country about his secret talks with the Russian ambassador.”

According to a White House official, Trump was informed more than two weeks ago that Flynn had not told the truth about his interactions with Russia’s ambassador.

Retired Army Gen. Keith Kellogg, a top policy adviser for Trump’s campaign, was appointed acting national security adviser while a search is conducted for a permanent replacement for Mr. Flynn. The top choice, according to administration officials, is retired Vice Admiral Robert S. Harward.

Military Connection salutes and proudly serves veterans and service members in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, Guard and Reserve,  and their families.

Air Force Faces Shortage of Fighter Pilots

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fighter pilor shortage

By Debbie Gregory.

The loss of highly trained and experienced pilots from the U.S. military to the private sector is a legitimate worry. And the U.S. Air Force says its deficit of fighter pilots is growing.

At the end of fiscal year 2016, the Air Force was short 750 fighter pilots, up from 511 at the end of the previous year.

“The health of the fighter pilot community is bad,” said Lt. Gen. Chris Nowland, Air Force deputy chief of staff for operations, plans and requirements (AF/A3). “Recruiting and getting people on to fly is not a problem,” he added. “If you look across the Air Force, the quality of the individuals coming into the Air Force are some of the highest we ever had. That goes for the enlisted and officer force.”

The past 25 years of continuous combat operations has taken a toll on the Air Force fighter community. Compounding the problem since fiscal 2014, losses of fighter pilots have exceeded the Air Force’s annual production capacity.

The Air Force is tackling the problem of capacity.  There is a lot of infrastructure associated with ramping up pilot numbers.

The Air Force and has started several initiatives to fix problem areas with a threefold approach: reducing the number of fighter pilot requirements, increasing retention of pilots and increasing the production of new fighter pilots.

Much of the impact on the military flying community stems from the draw of commercial airlines, who have been hiring at an increased rate the past three years.

“There are three pillars that a lot of people focus on when considering staying in the military; quality of service, quality of life and monetary compensation,” said Col. Jason Cockrum, the AF/A3 director of staff. “Nobody in the civilian sector can compete with quality of service. What Airmen go out and do every day for our nation, you just can’t get that anywhere else.”

He continued, “So we are focused on improvements related to quality of life and monetary compensation. We are not going to be able to compete directly with the airline industry on the monetary piece, but we are focusing on how we can ensure the other two pillars offset any differences offered by the civilian sector.”

VA to Cover IVF Treatments for Certain Veterans

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ivf

By Debbie Gregory.

A policy change can now help disabled veterans start a family.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is now covering the costs of in vitro fertilization (IVF) until the fall of 2018.

During the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, even though thousands of servicemembers suffered genitourinary, blast, spinal and brain injuries that left them unable to conceive naturally, the VA was unable to cover the costs of certain fertility services because of a ban Congress passed in 1992.

Last year, Senate Democrats, led by Senator Patty Murray, D-Wash, successfully secured a provision in the MilCon-VA Appropriations bill that gives VA the authority to provide assisted reproductive technology, of which IVF is the most common, through Fiscal Year 2018.

Many troops who suffered blast wounds to their genitals and spines while deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan have found it difficult or impossible to conceive without medical intervention. IVF treatments, which involve collecting eggs from a woman’s ovaries and fertilizing them with sperm in a laboratory, can be prohibitively expensive for these veteran families, averaging more than $10,000 per pregnancy attempt.

This new VA policy allows counseling and three rounds of IVF for veterans and their spouses if they have a service-connected disability that makes then unable to have children without treatment

The senators will continue to push for a permanent repeal of the ban.

“On behalf of all of the military families who have sacrificed so much on our behalf, I will keep working to permanently repeal the ban and make sure this country never turns its back on those who served,” Murray said in a released statement.

Sen. Jon Tester, the top Democrat on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, called the IVF ban an “unjust policy” and the VA announcement to offer the procedure a step in the right direction.

“We owe a great deal to the men and women who put their lives on the line for this country.  And it is past time that we overturned this unjust policy so that those who have sacrificed on our behalf are finally able to access critical services and build their own families. This announcement is a step in the right direction to ensure that all veterans and their loved ones are able to have a family,” said Senator Tester.

Military Connection salutes and proudly serves veterans and service members in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, Guard and Reserve,  and their families.

Air Force to Recruit “Cyber SWAT Team”

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af cyber

By Debbie Gregory.

Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James announced the new, jokingly referring to the new service as “a nerd cyber SWAT team.”

The Air Force’s Defense Digital Service (DDS) will be a small team that will “help us build software excellence into new programs and troubleshoot existing programs that run into difficulties with software,” according to James.

The GPS Next Operational Control System (OCX) program “ran into some problems, in part, because we collectively underestimated the level of software complexity and the cybersecurity that the project would require,” James said. “So we brought in these experts — many of whom came from Silicon Valley — and they helped us to understand some very advanced, new software tools and techniques and practices. They gave us some advice that helped us collectively bring the program back on track.”

“The Air Force digital service is going to be a component of the [Defense Department] digital service,” James said, “which is a group of extremely talented engineers with skills honed in the private sector who today have come into government for a brief period of time …”

DDS is itself an offshoot of the U.S. Digital Service, which was created in 2014 with a mission of recruiting top private-sector technical talent to serve short stints in government to solve technical challenges such as overhauling the healthcare.gov website.

In addition to launching the AFDS, James said that the Air Force intends to grow its cyber workforce by 3,000 airmen in the Air National Guard by 2019. She said the new personnel would bring private sector experience to Guard units in 34 states.

James said that the next Air Force secretary must focus on a number of priorities including growing the workforce, improving readiness, upgrading conventional and nuclear systems and developing space capabilities.

Military Connection salutes and proudly serves veterans and service members in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, Guard and Reserve,  and their families.

Proposed Military Residency Choice Act Benefits Mil Spouses

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The Military Residency Choice Act

By Debbie Gregory.

The Military Residency Choice Act, introduced by San Diego Congressmen Darrell Issa and Rob Wittman, will ease the tax burden on military families by allowing them to establish one consistent state of residency.

Active duty service members have always been able to keep one state as their state of legal residency (usually their Home of Record) for tax purposes even when they move frequently on military orders. It gets complicated when service members move, sometimes multiple times a year, because spouses are forced to establish residency in each new location.

The Military Residency Choice Act will allow military spouses, if they so choose, to establish the same state of residency as the service member, so that for any future moves, they will retain the same state for tax and voting purposes.

“The last thing our military families need is additional stress during tax season,” Rep. Wittman said. “Allowing military families to establish a consistent state of residency will give spouses the confidence to re-join the workforce when they move and help them better provide for their families. Our nation’s military is only as strong as the men and women serving and the families who support them. Passing this simple residency fix will send a strong signal to our military families that we have their best interests at heart.”

Military spouse unemployment becomes very expensive when you take into consideration the loss of federal income tax, the costs of unemployment benefits, and the costs of health care issues related to unemployment.

“Military families sacrifice a great deal for us all,” Rep. Issa said. “They’re often transferred from place to place, uprooting their lives each time they receive a change of station orders. Each transition requires difficult adjustments as they adapt to new schools, new jobs, new churches and new communities. They shouldn’t be burdened yet again when tax season comes around. This bill is an easy update that will simplify tax season for military families by allowing spouses to claim the same residency as their service members. It’s a simple fix, but it will go a long way to make life easier for those who have already given so much.”

Don’t you think this is the least we can do for military spouses?

Military Connection salutes and proudly serves veterans and service members in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, Guard and Reserve,  and their families.


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