WASHINGTON–President Barack Obama announced his new Veterans Employment Initiative last week to assist military veterans with finding jobs. Obama is proposing to give tax credits to companies who hire unemployed veterans and establish transition programs for service members to ease the process of looking for civilian jobs or higher education.
“For someone who has been in active duty for most of their adult life, the transition into the civilian world can be very different,” said Ryan Gallucci, deputy director at Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States, a nonprofit service organization for military veterans.
“With this unemployment crisis, employers don’t recognize the skills that service members bring to the job market. What happens many times is they view folks coming off of active duty as inexperienced or entry level which doesn’t accurately reflect the responsibility that they may have had while serving in the military,” Gallucci said.
Obama calls for a new “Returning Heroes” tax credit granting a maximum of $2,400 for every short-term hire and $4,800 for every long-term unemployed veteran hire.
“It’s really a win-win, because right now the Department of Treasury pays a tremendous amount of money on unemployment benefits to veterans who are unable to find jobs in a weak economy,” Gallucci said. “By offering incentives for employers to hire them, we see it as something that will really broaden the tax base so it’s a lot more productive for veterans to reenter the workforce rather than having them collecting unemployment.”
Obama is also proposing an increase in the existing tax credit for companies who hire veterans with service-connected disabilities. For those who have been unemployed for six months or more could receive a maximum of $9,600 per veteran. For all other veterans, up to $4,800 in tax credit could be issued.
Joining forces with the Defense Department and the Department of Veterans Affairs, the administration is proposing a new reverse boot camp program which will help prepare service members to leave the military for the civilian workforce.
Gerald Kapinos, program manager with Student Veterans of America, said military training does not transfer into the academic world.
“In a lot of cases, colleges and universities do not accept most military training because it doesn’t fit within their curriculum,” Kapinos said. “But this proposal does nothing to address that…offering an incentive for employers to hire somebody who’s not qualified isn’t going to really do anything.”
However, Kapinos said he does see the need for a transition program and that a more localized transition program would benefit veterans more rather than a single comprehensive class.
“Having a one size fits all approach for everybody getting out of the military, there’s just so many different variables and dynamics that go into it,” Kapinos said. “You can’t create something that’s going to fit everybody’s needs.”
The President has challenged the private sector to hire or train 100,000 unemployed veterans who have served since September 11 or their spouses by the end of 2013.
“The military is very good at preparing service members to do their specific job in the military and I believe the hope here is that they can also prepare them adequately to compete in the civilian job market,” Gallucci said.
