A version of this article originally appeared in the June 2025 issue of Military Officer, a magazine available to all MOAA Premium and Life members. Learn more about the magazine here; learn more about joining MOAA here.

If you don’t track it, you can’t measure it. If you don’t measure it, you can’t solve it.  

More than 40 years after identifying the significant employment challenges that accompany life as a military spouse, there still isn’t a formalized method for consistently tracking and measuring the issue. The lack of accurate, timely data limits the effectiveness of policies and programs designed to address military spouse unemployment.

To make meaningful progress on the persistent 20-percent-plus spouse unemployment rate, DoD and policymakers should prioritize consistent and systematic data collection.

[RELATED: Ask Your Lawmakers to Add Military Spouses to the Work Opportunity Tax Credit]

Some may wonder whether DoD should invest time and money in solving the military spouse unemployment issue. The answer is best summed up by former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Edward C. Meyer, who said: “We [the Army] recruit soldiers, but we retain families.”

Supporting spouse employment isn’t just the right thing to do: It directly influences family financial stability, military retention, and overall force readiness.   

A Long-Standing Problem

The struggle to find and maintain employment has been documented for decades. As early as 1981, a report in the federal government’s Monthly Labor Review identified frequent moves, long separations, and isolated duty stations as major contributors to military spouse unemployment.

From congressionally directed reports to nonprofit surveys, there are hundreds of documents reaffirming such barriers.

While the challenges of relocations, atypical servicemember schedules, and lack of accessible child care are well-documented, what’s urgently needed now is robust data to drive solutions.  

When veteran unemployment surpassed 9% in 2010, DoD, the VA, the Department of Labor, and other federal entities gathered critical data to accurately assess the problem and develop solutions. Today, veteran unemployment is consistently lower than civilian unemployment. This isn’t an apples-to-apples comparison, but it illustrates the importance of having timely data to assess the impacts of proposed solutions. 

[RELATED: Ask Congress to Invest in Military Families and Pass the Military Spouse Hiring Act]

This is not a new idea. This echoes calls over decades from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), Deloitte, and others for more accurate, timely data:  

• DoD: Report of the First Quadrennial Quality of Life Review (2004): States RAND would be working with the Bureau of Labor Statistics to broaden the scope of current employment statistics to track military spouse employment on a continuing basis. 

• RAND: Measuring Underemployment Among Military Spouses (2010): States “to gain adequate employment and to evaluate the effectiveness of its policies, DoD need to measure military wives’ labor market conditions and monitor changes.” 

• GAO: Military Spouse Employment Programs (2012): Reveals DoD’s inability to measure the overall effectiveness of its spouse employment programs in achieving the goals of reducing unemployment and the wage gap with civilian spouses. 

• Deloitte Insights: Military Spouse Unemployment (2020): Specifies the “most significant challenge facing military spouse under- and unemployment may simply be a lack of quality data.” 

Yet more than 20 years later, we were left eagerly awaiting the results of DoD’s 2024 Active Duty Spouse Survey to get the latest data on military spouse employment. 

The ongoing struggle of military spouses to secure stable employment remains a critical issue. While decades of research have underscored the impact of spouse employment on military retention and family financial stability, data collection remains inconsistent. To effectively support military families, we must find a way to consistently track military spouse employment, ensuring policies and assistance programs are truly addressing the challenges faced by this vital community.

The work done by DoD to develop policies, resources, and programs that support increasing employment opportunities for military spouses is remarkable, but without reliable data, solutions will remain fragmented, jeopardizing the well-being of military families and hurting the readiness of the armed forces.