Veteran households consistently outearn their non-veteran counterparts — a trend that has prevailed for nearly 40 years, according to a new report.
“Households headed by veterans have higher incomes and are less likely to be in poverty, on average, and this is especially the case for veterans in racial or ethnic minority groups and those with less education,” a report from the Pew Research Center published Monday said.
The report, based off of information from the U.S. Census Bureau, showed that the median annual income for veterans households in 2017 was approximately $88,700 — about $12,000 more than the median annual income among non-veteran households.
The report, however, does not explain why.
This is not a recent development. In fact, the study notes that the median income for veteran households was $77,000 in 1980. For non-veteran households, that number dropped to $61,500.
Since then, veteran households have always earned more each year than non-veteran households, according to the report.
The gap in income is even more stark when examining households headed by racial or ethnic minorities. For example, black veteran households earned an average of $77,400 in 2017, whereas non-veteran black households earned an average of $50,300 that year.
The report also found that Hispanic veterans households earned more than $30,000 on average a year than non-veteran Hispanic households in 2017.
Likewise, veterans with a high school diploma significantly outearned non-veterans with the same educational background by about $20,000 in annual income, the report found.
Among those with bachelor’s degrees, the disparity was less severe and veterans had a roughly $2,500 advantage.
The analysis only reflected those between the ages of 25 and 54 to focus on those in their “prime working years,” since veterans are more likely to be older than non-veterans, the study said.
The Pew Research Center report comes days after the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that the veterans unemployment rate rose slightly from 3 percent in October to 3.4 percent in November.
Even so, veterans unemployment has stayed under the national average for 19 consecutive months. The national unemployment rate reached 3.5 percent last month.
