Veterans

1. Who are veterans?
2. What is active duty?
3. What are periods of military service?
4. What is a service-connected disability rating?

Veterans are men and women who have served (even for a short time), but are not currently serving, on active duty in the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, or the Coast Guard, or who served in the U.S. Merchant Marine during World War II. People who served in the National Guard or Reserves are classified as veterans only if they were ever called or ordered to active duty, not counting the 4-6 months for initial training or yearly summer camps.

While it is possible for 17 year olds to be veterans of the Armed Forces, ACS data products are restricted to the population 18 years and older.

For more information about definitions of veterans’ topics on the American Community Survey, see American Community Survey Topic Information: Veterans. [PDF - 10K]

Active duty military service includes service in the regular U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Coast Guard and active duty status in the Reserves and the National Guard (other than for training).

People who indicate that they had ever served on active duty in the past or were currently on active duty are asked to indicate the period or periods in which they served. Currently, there are 11 periods of service on the ACS questionnaire. Respondents are instructed to mark a box for each period in which they served, even if just for part of the period. The periods were determined by the Department of Veterans Affairs and generally alternate between peacetime and wartime, with a few exceptions.

The Department of Veterans Affairs evaluates veterans with a variety of disabling conditions after they are discharged from military service. A "service-connected" disability means the disability was a result of a disease or injury incurred or aggravated during active military service. The VA uses the Schedule for Rating Disabilities in Title 38, U.S. Code of Federal Regulations, Part 4 to assign ratings. These ratings are graduated according to degrees of disability on a scale from 0 to 100 percent, in increments of 10 percent. The ratings determine the amount of compensation payments made to the veterans. A zero-rating, which is different than having no rating at all, means a disability exists but it is not so disabling that it entitles the veteran to compensation payments.

Service-connected disability ratings are not necessarily correlated with having a disability, as defined by the ACS questions. Veterans can receive a service-connected disability rating for a variety of conditions. Caution should be used when trying to correlate the two concepts using ACS data.

For more information about service-connected disability status and ratings, see Evaluation of New Content on the 2008 American Community Survey: Service-Connected Disability Status and Ratings. [PDF - 10K]