Achieving Sustainable Wage And Job Stability Outcomes For Veterans In Our Nation's Job Center Programs

The Backdrop For Veterans Day 2025

Veterans Day 2025 is happening against a backdrop of October job cuts totaling 153,074. A 183% surge from September. The highest level of job cuts for any October since 2003. 2025 has been the worst year for announced layoffs since 2009. Veterans Day 2025 is not a time to reflect on past military service We need to be focusing in on livelihoods in the present and into the future. Unemployed military veterans are in need of meaningful help.

The State Of Veterans Services In Our Nation's Job Centers

Outcome analysis reveals the actual value in real terms of the priority of service in employment and training to veterans seeking assistance from their local job service as well as in the Workforce Innovation And Opportunity Act (WIOA) programs. Through benign neglect, Congressionally mandated priority of service for veterans has become a hollow promise across the nation. The latest program year (PY 2023) numbers speak for themselves.

• The average pre-wage to six-month post wage differential for veterans exiting job centers was -28%
  • In only five states was the pre-post wage loss was under 20%
• The average wage at six months post was -43% below the average wage earned in the state
  • 33% of all veterans in the file had a college degree along with their military service
  • 59% were over the age of 45 with significant civilian work experience to market
• Congress awarded veterans the highest priority in WIOA enrollment followed by non-veterans with barriers to employment. Non-veterans with no barriers to employment are a lower priority after these client groups are addressed. The lowest priority is for those already employed with no barriers to employment at all.
  • An average of 4% of those enrolled were veterans. 6% of those enrolled were employed with no barriers. The two lowest priority groups comprised 17% of all who were enrolled. Four times the number of veterans enrolled. In six states the ratio was over 10:1. You can't receive retraining if you can't get enrolled.
• Federal contractors are required to post job listings and to conduct local affirmative action outreach to seek out qualified veterans and disabled veterans to interview with an eye towards hire. Over 50,000 of them in all parts of the country. Job listing are posted on state job boards. There is no evidence in outcomes that these job postings are resulting in a significant number of veterans in the files being hired and retained. Local affirmative action outreach is not happening. States do not have systems for reestablishing the local referral partnership between job centers and local federal contractors that existed before states centralized employer relations in Internet-based job boards.

Five Proposed Policy Objectives To Correct Service Delivery Deficiencies

Path To A Job joins other veterans advocates in actively promoting five policy objectives to be achieved by Memorial Day 2026 intended to boost wage and job duration outcomes for veterans seeking assistance

• By the end of 2025, every state in the nation should formally designate laid off federal workers to be dislocated workers eligible for WIOA's Dislocated Workers program because they meet the definition. They are barred from returning to their industry and in need of transition assistance. This begins with veterans who have priority of service. Veterans are 30% of the federal workforce and are disproportionately represented in this unprecedented mass layoff. It is estimated that tens of thousands of mid-life veterans who are now former federal employees are in need of reemployment assistance. An unemployment check isn't enough. WIOA needs to be stepping up to the plate as does the job service. This is a silent crisis. Attention must be paid.
• By Memorial Day 2026, every local WIOA entity will have a service delivery protocol in place assuring that local WIOA actually abides by the stated regulations and awards veterans the priority of service Ending the practice of instead enrolling and training those already employed with no barriers to employment. Those with the lowest priority should no longer be enrolled before veterans in need.
• By Memorial Day 2026, every state will issue Conditional Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) Certifications to their unemployed veterans. Tax credits that range from $2,400-$9,600 to businesses that hire and retain veterans and disabled veterans. The certifications will be embedded in Individual Employment Plans (IEP) that steer job searches. To improve outcomes, states should be adopting a veterans version of their RESEA that calls claimants into job centers for plus attention that includes conditional certifications to assist in self-directed job search by providing tax incentives in hiring.
• Homeless veterans should not be left behind. Local outreach should be coordinated with HUD funded homeless projects and shelters to see to it that homeless veterans also have effective IEPs steering their search for sustainable employment. IEPs that include financial incentives for businesses to hire and retain them. This would entice far more homeless veterans to be in contact with local job center staff.
• By Memorial Day 2026, states will have plans for adopting ongoing local veteran referral partnerships with local federal contractors beginning with blue collar federal contractors in manufacturing and construction. Plans that will be implemented well before Veterans Day 2026.

Our Offer To Assist

Change is not only possible. It is the only way to achieve better outcomes. As Henry Ford once put it "If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got". Path To A Job is interested in opening a fifty-state dialogue. Several of our suite of reemployment tools will be made available for free to job center employment and training programs in states that recognize that the status quo is not tenable. We maintain ongoing contact information for every federal contractor with affirmative action outreach responsibilities in their federal contracts. Information we will share with states that recognize that the status quo is not tenable for their unemployed veterans. We have a non-monetary offer on the table that would immediately make a positive difference in staff: client interactions and expertise in each of the five policy objectives.

Ways Of Supplementing The Present Veterans Service Delivery Model

• A free Career Exploration Tool that includes occupational choice between occupations that do not require college degrees or certification that pay more than the average for occupations that do not require college degrees or certification for low income clients (This includes AI generated interview questions based on the target occupation)
• A free Individualized Employment Plan (IEP) for veterans (Includes a personalized Summary Of Qualifications that can be used as the framework of a productivity-focused resume or as a faux resume as well as AI generated interview questions based on the target occupation including interview questions based on the individual's target occupation. Includes a link to local businesses that might staff the target occupation)
• WIOA under enrollment of veterans most notably disabled veterans Connecting local federal contractors with job centers (A free summary of federal contractors by county in the state)
• Work Opportunity Tax Credit Conditional Certifications for veterans
• RESEA For Veterans On Claims That Includes IEPs And WOTC Conditional Certifications
• Enhancing Service Delivery To Veterans Laid Off By The Federal Government