Career services for veterans with disability ratings

Our disability compensation system for veterans is medically out of date, in financial crisis, and failing those who have been injured fighting the nation’s wars. Most fundamentally, it incentivizes veterans to be sick and discourages them from engaging in meaningful work. Sidelined by the disability system rather than actual disability, workforce participation among recent veterans has declined by 11% since 2000, and their well-being, life happiness, and integration into society have suffered. Meanwhile, the nation now spends over 90 billion dollars annually on VA disability checks—more than it spends on healthcare and education combined. Finally, an epidemic of veteran suicide points to an urgent need to encourage veterans to heal and connect with their communities through civic engagement and meaningful work.

To find alternatives to this unsustainable path, the Independence Project is testing new ways of assisting injured veterans, and carefully evaluating how participants are affected by different interventions. This program was developed based on input from veterans, their advocates, economists, and psychologists, and offers a very different approach from the current system that simply compensation with no reward for productivity. The Independence Project is built on individualized support, front-loaded investment, and incentives for recovery, with the fundamental principle being that all veterans can thrive. The treatment is based around three parts:

• Career Coaching: An intensive in-person orientation followed by one-on-one job coaching by email and phone

• A Human Capital Fund: $7,000 each veteran can use to improve career readiness—from tools to training

• Earnings Bonuses: Vets who take jobs get a 25% bonus on monthly earned income between $1,200 and $4,500

In late 2017, an initial pilot to test the program recruited 142 participants under the age of 44 who were honorably discharged from the military within the last six months with disability ratings between 30% and 90%. Program participants had a 73% employment rate after 6 months, vs. the control group’s 31%. These stunning findings are now ready to be replicated in other settings. We will continue to track the outcomes of this pilot group over the remainder of its 18-month implementation period. Meanwhile, the full randomized-controlled trial, including program refinements using knowledge gained in the pilot, was launched in April 2018. Results from this full-scale experiment will be collected and rigorously evaluated by the respected research firm Westat, then released to experts and policymakers. 

Our team is ready to partner with VA, DoD, Congress and other federal, state, local, and non-profit partners to expand this demonstration program which has a potential to offer substantially improved outcomes in four primary areas:

• Transitioning Service Members: if offered at transition, this program will create the conditions for new veterans to lead a life of self-sufficiency and socio-economic health.

• Military Spouses: military spouses who have been involved in child rearing or struggled to find/maintain employment during military-required moves could benefit from the coaching, funding, and incentives in this intervention.

• Individual Unemployability/Vocational Rehabilitation: VA could offer or require participation in a version of this program as part of vocational rehabilitation or prior to acceptance in IU, especially for those of employable age.

• Suicide Prevention: The strongest protective factor against suicide risk is employment; VA could partner with us as part of its suicide prevention efforts.