Making Ends Meet: Employment, Cash Transfers, and Poverty in Post–9/11 Era Wounded Military Veterans

Abstract

Over 36% of post–9/11 era veterans have a disability, but little research has examined wounded veterans’ finances. We investigated main and interaction effects of income sources and demographic, military, and mental health characteristics on household poverty and deep poverty to better understand wounded veterans’ financial outcomes. Data were drawn from the 2018 Wounded Warrior Survey ( n = 33,067). Two logistic regression models investigated direct associations between independent variables and poverty outcomes; predictive margins and average marginal effects were calculated for employment and cash transfers on outcomes. 56% of respondents reported full- or part-time employment, and 17% met criteria for household poverty. Of those, 75% met criteria for deep poverty. Cash transfers were negatively associated with poverty and deep poverty, and part-time employment was positively associated with poverty compared with not working. Employment was insufficient protection against poverty in this sample of wounded veterans—transfers were a critical bulwark.