EDBI Reports on Veterans' Benefits and Employment

Veterans’ Benefits Online Tools Project Phase II Boundaries Report

The recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have brought with them a marked increase in the number of troops returning from combat with physical and mental disabilities. Those who apply for various veterans’ benefits report their encounters with a complicated system with a maze of interactions, bureaucratic barriers, and limited outreach. Given these circumstances, it is not surprising that veterans are experiencing high rates of unemployment, poverty, and homelessness. Our troops deserve better. In fact, they deserve nothing less than the same opportunities to pursue the American dream that they’ve fought so hard to protect for their fellow citizens. To address this unacceptable and near chronic situation, the World Institute on Disability met six times in the fall of 2008 with veterans and disability organizations. Their goal was to identify specific barriers that veterans face when trying to access the benefits systems and transition to civilian employment. They found daunting sets of rules, intricate interactions between programs, a lack of a single place to turn to for information and resources, and service providers struggling to navigate complex programs with handheld calculators and self-designed worksheets.

Veterans’ Benefits Online Tools Findings Project Final Report

The California Work Incentives Initiative at the World Institute on Disability, Oakland, California, met six times this fall with expert veterans’ and disability organizations to assess how U.S. veterans obtain benefits information, and how veterans learn about benefit programs as they plan for paid work. Veterans today can access the VA’s Disability Pension and Disability Compensation cash benefit programs (the latter possibly modified by a finding of Individual Unemployability); military retirement benefits and Combat-Related Special Compensation, administered by the Department of Defense; Social Security’s SSDI and SSI cash disability benefits; health coverage through the VA, DoD’s TRICARE, Medicaid, or Medicare; Section 8 housing subsidies; food stamps; and numerous programs operated by the states. The VA presumes that certain illnesses or conditions are service related if the veteran served in certain places at certain times. The rules governing each of these programs are daunting in themselves. But many veterans are facing compounded complexity: these programs interact intricately with each other, and with changes in earned income or other routine life changes.