Goal: Lower vets unemployment by Veterans Day - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

Goal: Lower vets unemployment by Veterans Day

Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are meeting with members of Congress and the Obama administration to urge that everyone commit — amid increasingly partisan rancor — to reducing veterans unemployment.

Their goal is to reduce the veterans unemployment rate to at least match the national unemployment rate by Veterans Day.

The Labor Department reports that in 2010, the unemployment rate for all Iraq- and Afghanistan-era veterans was 11.5 percent while the unemployment rate for nonveterans was 9.7 percent.

Since the start of 2011, the unemployment rate for veterans has been even higher — 15.2 percent in January and 12.5 percent in February, with March numbers just starting to be calculated.

Paul Rieckhoff, founder and executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, said more than 100 meetings are planned this week with lawmakers, as well as with officials at the White House, Defense Department and Veterans Affairs Departments.

“All parties could get behind a goal of lowering unemployment for veterans by Veterans Day,” Rieckhoff said Monday.

Rieckhoff said he believes February’s 12.5 percent unemployment rate for people who have served in the military since 2001 actually understates the true rate.

“It is higher than most people think,” he said, citing an informal survey he has made of IAVA members that appears to show an unemployment rate of around 20 percent.

Rieckhoff said IAVA doesn’t expect the federal government to have the full solution to veterans’ employment problems. State and local governments can help, and so can private businesses, he said.

“If you want to support the troops, you want to support veterans, hire them,” Rieckhoff said.