From Service to Struggle: Exploring the Link Between Service-Connected Disability and Poverty Among Veteran Households

ABSTRACT

I examine the relationship between service-connected disability and poverty among veteran households using data from the 2009–2019 1-year American Community Survey. I find that service-connected disability is an important mechanism that helps veteran households avoid poverty. This is evidenced by a strong monotonic relationship whereby veteran households with the most severe service-connected disability have the lowest predicted likelihood of poverty. However, evidence suggests service-connected disability is associated with an increased likelihood of deep poverty among already impoverished households. Within this context, veteran households with the most severe service-connected disability have the highest predicted likelihood of deep poverty.

KEYWORDS:

• Deep poverty
• poverty
• service-connected disability
• veteran

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. 2009 is the earliest year with both Service-Connected Disability and Supplemental Poverty Measure data. 2019 is the latest year that the American Community Survey contains Supplemental Poverty Measure data.

2. The veteran must enroll for care at the VA. Following medical exams to determine the extent of disability, the VA assigns a rating between 0% to 100% disabled.

3. VA assigns a rating between 0% to 100% disabled and pays scale accordingly.

4. Results are similar employing logistic regressions.

5. I also use the OPM and note any differences that arise.

6. Columbia University’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy releases a historical version of the SPM that can be linked to Current Population Survey (CPS) data; however, one also needs to use the veteran supplement of the CPS to get information on veteran disability and ratings. This can be done but it leads to a small sample size in every year.

7. Betancourt et al. (2021) report that, over a sample from the years 2003–2019, veterans have higher rates of several important morbidities as compared to nonveterans.

8. SCD and ACS-defined disability are correlated but do not coincide. Because the two are correlated, I provide sensitivity analysis.