One million veterans are now unemployed

Private sector might have to do more to ease unemployment among military veterans
By ROB HOTAKAINEN
McClatchy Newspapers
Published: October 9, 2011

WASHINGTON - Democrats and Republicans rarely agree on anything in the nation's capital, but there's a growing bipartisan sense on Capitol Hill that the private sector will have to do much more to help Congress ease chronically high unemployment among veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

In August, President Barack Obama called on the nation's businesses to hire or train 100,000 unemployed veterans by the end of 2013, a challenge that Microsoft answered with a pledge to train 10,000 of them.

Now, as part of his $447 billion jobs package, Obama wants Congress to approve a plan that would provide businesses a tax credit of $2,400 to $9,600 for each veteran they hire, depending on whether they're disabled and how long they've been unemployed.

One million veterans already are unemployed and more than a million are expected to leave the military by 2016. Julius Clemente, a 33-year-old Iraq veteran from Kirkland, Wash., told a congressional panel Thursday that there will be "systematic chaos" if more of them can't find jobs or get help going to college.
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