Many recent vets are unemployed:
A lower percentage of veterans, as a whole, is unemployed (6.3%) compared with their never served counterparts (7.3%). But that’s not true of those who have worn the uniform post–9/11, who had a 10% jobless rate last month.
Sean Vitka pursues the reasons why:
One of the reasons—I suspect the biggest—can be found in an underreported story form just a few days ago. The International Business Times reported that the Department of Veterans Affairs had “stopped releasing statistics on non-fatal war casualties to the public.” It’s likely that the number of people injured from fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq just passed the 1 million mark; of course, we can’t know that, because the data is being withheld.
It’s hard for veterans to find jobs; it’s even harder if they’re disabled. The Department of Labor has the September unemployment rate of people with disabilities at 13.1 percent (and people without at 6.8 percent). If the bills America is paying are any indication, the number of disabled veterans is skyrocketing. America paid disabled veterans $14.8 billion in 2000. In 2011, that number rose to $39.4 billion. The percentages are also climbing. USA Today reported that for the same period, the percentage of veterans with disabilities climbed a staggering 45 percent.
The Dish 