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Joining Forces

Joining Forces is a White House initiative launched on April 12, 2011, by First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden to mobilize public and private sectors in supporting the families, caregivers, and survivors of U.S. military service members and veterans.^[1]^[2] The program seeks to address challenges faced by military families, including employment opportunities for veterans and spouses, access to education, mental health services, and overall well-being, by encouraging commitments from businesses, educational institutions, nonprofits, and government agencies.^[3]^[4] In its first year, Joining Forces secured pledges from over 200 companies and organizations, leading to expanded hiring initiatives and resource allocations targeted at military communities.^[2] Continued across administrations, the initiative has emphasized practical support such as job training and caregiver assistance, though quantifiable long-term outcomes remain tied to voluntary private-sector participation rather than mandatory federal programs.^[5]^[6] No major controversies have been associated with the effort, which operates as a nonpartisan call to civic action focused on recognizing service-related sacrifices.^[7]

Establishment and Objectives

Launch and Founding Context

Joining Forces was announced on April 12, 2011, by First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden during an event at the White House, marking the formal launch of a national campaign to support military families, veterans, and service members.^[1]^[8] The initiative responded to the challenges faced by the U.S. armed forces in the post-9/11 era, including extended combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan that strained an all-volunteer military established since the end of conscription in 1973.^[2] These conflicts had led to repeated and prolonged deployments, contributing to family disruptions such as higher divorce rates and caregiver burdens, as documented in military family support analyses.^[9] The founding context highlighted empirical pressures on returning veterans, particularly those from the Gulf War-era II cohort, whose unemployment rate reached 12.1 percent in 2010 according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, exceeding the national average and underscoring transition difficulties without altering fundamental military recruitment structures like reinstating a draft.^[10] Obama and Biden emphasized mobilizing civilian sectors to honor these sacrifices, framing the effort as a civic duty rather than a governmental expansion, in recognition of the volunteer force's unique demands during a decade of asymmetric warfare.^[1] This approach prioritized private and community involvement to mitigate issues like employment barriers and family resilience, distinct from legislative overhauls.^[11]

Primary Goals and Focus Areas

Joining Forces identifies three primary focus areas—employment, education, and wellness—as mechanisms to bolster military family stability, thereby causally supporting service member retention through alleviated stressors and easing post-service transitions via enhanced civilian integration. These pillars address empirically observed challenges, such as economic insecurity from skill gaps and mobility, educational disruptions from relocations, and health strains from trauma and caregiving, by coordinating public awareness with private-sector and community resources rather than relying solely on federal programs.^[4]^[12] The employment pillar targets hiring commitments for veterans and military spouses to mitigate barriers including frequent duty-station changes, which contribute to spouse underemployment rates exceeding 20% in some analyses, and the translation of military experience to civilian roles. By soliciting private-sector pledges for recruitment, training, and flexible policies, the initiative aims to foster economic self-sufficiency, reducing financial pressures that could otherwise prompt early separations from service or hinder veteran labor market entry.^[13]^[14] In education, efforts concentrate on facilitating seamless school transitions for military children, who average 6 to 9 moves during K-12 years, and promoting utilization of veteran benefits such as the Post-9/11 GI Bill for postsecondary access. These goals seek to minimize academic setbacks from inconsistent curricula and administrative hurdles, causally linking consistent educational continuity to improved family adaptability and long-term outcomes like higher graduation rates, which in turn sustain military readiness by reinforcing family commitment to service.^[15]^[16] The wellness pillar emphasizes mental health support, caregiver relief, and family resilience-building through provider training on military-specific issues like post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury. By prioritizing coordinated referrals to evidence-based interventions over broad awareness campaigns alone, it addresses elevated suicide risks among veterans and caregiver burnout, aiming to preserve unit cohesion via healthier families and smoother reintegration by mitigating untreated conditions that exacerbate transition failures.^[17]^[18]

Implementation and Operations

Leadership and Organizational Structure

Joining Forces functions as a White House initiative coordinated through the Executive Office of the President, eschewing the creation of a standalone federal agency or expanded bureaucracy. Instead, it employs a lean operational framework centered on an executive director responsible for liaising with government agencies, private entities, and nonprofits to secure voluntary commitments addressing military family needs in areas such as employment and education. This director lacks authority to allocate federal funds or impose regulations, focusing instead on advocacy and pledge facilitation to promote self-sustaining, partnership-driven outcomes.^[19] The position of executive director has been held by senior military officers and civilian experts selected for their expertise in veteran and family support. U.S. Navy Captain Bradley Cooper served as the first executive director from 2011 to 2012, establishing initial coordination mechanisms during the initiative's launch under President Obama. Subsequent leaders, including Rory Brosius from 2021 onward and Sheila Casey in 2023, maintained this non-regulatory approach, reporting directly to the First Lady's office while leveraging interagency working groups for implementation.^[20]^[3]^[21] First Ladies have provided symbolic and strategic leadership across administrations, with Michelle Obama and Jill Biden co-chairing the effort since its 2011 inception. This role emphasizes public advocacy rather than executive decision-making, ensuring continuity despite presidential transitions; the initiative endured under President Trump, though with reduced visibility following an early removal of its White House webpage, before regaining prominence under President Biden. The bipartisan persistence underscores a governance model prioritizing high-level endorsement over institutional permanence.^[16]^[22] The organizational structure integrates ad hoc councils and task forces drawn from existing federal resources, such as the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs, to align efforts without duplicating functions. This hub-and-spoke model facilitates cross-sector alignment while respecting decentralized, incentive-based solutions over top-down mandates, reflecting a deliberate design to minimize administrative overhead and maximize private sector involvement.^[23]

Partnerships and Private Sector Engagement

In April 2011, shortly after its launch, the Joining Forces initiative sought private sector involvement by encouraging businesses to commit voluntarily to hiring and training veterans and military spouses, framing these efforts as alignments of corporate interests with national service obligations rather than mandated quotas. President Obama amplified this call in August 2011 with a specific challenge for companies to hire or train at least 26,000 post-9/11 veterans and military spouses by the end of 2012, prompting responses from numerous firms focused on resume workshops, skill-matching programs, and relocation accommodations.^[24] These commitments emphasized incentive-based participation, such as tax credits for veteran hiring under existing law, over direct subsidies, to foster sustainable economic integration without distorting labor markets. By November 2011, over 100 chief executives had endorsed expanded pledges, collectively aiming to create 100,000 jobs for veterans and military spouses by 2014, coordinated through events at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.^[25] The Chamber emerged as a key partner, integrating Joining Forces into its Hiring Our Heroes program, which organized hiring fairs and spouse employment summits to address barriers like frequent PCS moves and skill underutilization.^[26] Companies such as JPMorgan Chase committed to tailored onboarding and development for military talent, while Walmart implemented flexible scheduling and job-holding policies during deployments, scaling these through internal incentives like leadership tracks for veteran hires.^[27]^[28] Participation grew rapidly, with more than 2,000 businesses engaging by December 2012, reflecting broad buy-in from sectors including finance, retail, and manufacturing.^[29] However, the voluntary nature introduced enforcement challenges, as progress depended on self-reporting without centralized audits, leading to variability in pledge fulfillment and calls for enhanced transparency mechanisms to verify corporate claims against actual hiring data. This model prioritized scalable private incentives, such as reputational benefits and workforce diversity gains, over regulatory coercion, aligning with principles of market-driven support for military transitions.

Achievements and Outcomes

Employment and Economic Impacts

The Joining Forces initiative spurred private-sector commitments to hire veterans and military spouses, with early pledges from 2011 onward leading to over 290,000 veterans and spouses hired or trained by April 2013. By May 2016, cumulative efforts under the campaign had resulted in more than 1.2 million such placements since launch, surpassing initial goals amid a backdrop of veteran unemployment rates that fell from 8.6% in July 2011 to 6.9% in July 2012. These outcomes built on pre-initiative baselines, where post-9/11 veteran unemployment exceeded 12% in 2010, reflecting targeted interventions like the associated 100,000 Jobs Mission coalition that evolved to hire over 1 million veterans by 2025.^[13]^[30]^[31]^[32] Military spouse unemployment, which hovered above 25% prior to 2011 based on Department of Defense surveys, saw targeted reductions through Joining Forces partnerships emphasizing flexible hiring and credential recognition, though rates remained elevated at around 21-22% into the 2020s. Demographic disaggregation reveals varied impacts: women veterans experienced unemployment rates 2-3 percentage points higher than male counterparts in early post-service years, while spouse efforts disproportionately benefited licensed professionals, comprising up to 34% of the group, via portability initiatives. Junior enlisted veterans, often facing the highest transition barriers, benefited from these programs in sustaining economic mobility, with cohort analyses showing improved median earnings relative to non-participating peers.^[33]^[34]^[35] Economic stability gains from these employment outcomes have been linked to enhanced military retention, as family financial security reduces voluntary separations in the all-volunteer force; a 2025 American Enterprise Institute assessment notes that effective veteran transitions, including those bolstered by Joining Forces, contribute to long-term force sustainability by demonstrating viable post-service prospects and lowering reenlistment hesitancy tied to economic uncertainty. Empirical metrics, such as reduced underemployment among transitioning service members, underscore causal pathways where spouse employment correlates with 10-15% lower attrition risks in high-mobility units, without overstating direct attribution amid confounding factors like broader labor market trends.^[36]^[37]

Education and Wellness Results

Joining Forces contributed to the amplification of the Interstate Compact on Educational Opportunity for Military Children, originally enacted across states starting in 2008, through Department of Defense advocacy in 2011 to encourage broader state adoption and implementation. The compact standardizes policies on enrollment timing, course placement, eligibility for extracurriculars, and graduation requirements, mitigating disruptions from frequent relocations that affect over 80% of military children who change schools at least once during their K-12 years.^[38]^[39] This has facilitated advance enrollment options, reducing family stress during permanent change-of-station moves and enabling schools to better prepare for incoming students, with reported improvements in extracurricular participation and academic continuity.^[40] The initiative also promoted utilization of GI Bill benefits for transitioning service members and their dependents by supporting the launch of the VA GI Bill Comparison Tool in 2016, which aids in evaluating educational programs based on costs, outcomes, and approval status.^[41] This tool has enabled more informed decisions on transferring benefits to spouses or children, aligning with Joining Forces' emphasis on family education access, though specific post-launch utilization spikes are not directly quantified in program reports.^[42] In wellness, Joining Forces advanced PTSD and traumatic brain injury awareness through partnerships forming task forces for leadership training, public education, and research collaboration, aiming to reduce treatment stigma among military families.^[2] Concurrently, the VA's Program of Comprehensive Assistance for Family Caregivers, established in 2011, enrolled over 23,000 primary caregivers of post-9/11 veterans by 2019, providing stipends, training, and health services that correlated with increased veteran use of long-term care and reduced caregiver burden in early evaluations.^[43]^[44] These efforts supported family stability by addressing invisible wounds, though longitudinal data on direct causal links to outcomes like marital resilience remains limited in available surveys.^[45]

Quantitative Evaluations

Government reports from the Obama administration highlighted initial quantitative successes in pledge fulfillment under Joining Forces. By April 2012, participating companies had hired more than 50,000 veterans and military spouses, with commitments from over 1,600 firms to hire an additional 160,000 in subsequent years.^[2] These figures encompassed targeted efforts like license portability reforms, where 14 states enacted laws facilitating credential recognition for military spouses by the first anniversary.^[2] In education and wellness domains, metrics included the expansion of Advanced Placement courses to 29 high schools serving military families, yielding a 57% rise in qualifying exam scores and impacting 30,000 students across 14 states.^[2] Wellness initiatives trained over 3 million health professionals through partnerships with 135 medical schools and 500 nursing programs, while online modules on post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury reached more than 120,000 providers.^[2] Volunteer commitments totaled 21 million hours for military family support.^[2] Bureau of Labor Statistics data tracked veteran unemployment declining from 8.3% in 2011 to 7.0% in 2012, 6.6% in 2013, 5.3% in 2014, and approximately 4.2% in 2015.^[46]^[47]^[48]^[49] This trend aligned with national unemployment falling from 8.5% in 2011 to 5.3% in 2015, amid post-recession recovery and concurrent programs like Hiring Our Heroes, which obscured isolated causal effects of Joining Forces.^[46] Assessments of subcomponents, such as the Military Spouse Employment Partnership, relied on surveys indicating variable job quality and limited telecommuting postings, with spouse satisfaction mixed despite broader participation.^[50]^[51] Absent randomized controlled trials or econometric analyses isolating the initiative's effects from macroeconomic factors, evaluations remain primarily descriptive, with attribution challenges persisting due to confounding variables like overall labor market expansion.^[50]

Criticisms and Limitations

Debates on Effectiveness

Critics contend that Joining Forces has emphasized symbolic gestures, such as celebrity endorsements and corporate pledge ceremonies, over substantive structural changes, resulting in limited causal impact on persistent challenges like spouse underemployment and retention issues. For example, high-profile summits and media campaigns garnered widespread attention but coincided with only modest shifts in outcomes, as military spouse unemployment hovered at 21% in early 2024—nearly six times the civilian rate of 3.7%—despite over a decade of advocacy and voluntary hiring commitments from participating firms.^[52]^[53] This stagnation highlights unaddressed root causes, including frequent permanent change-of-station moves disrupting careers and varying state occupational licensing rules that invalidate portable qualifications, barriers that pledges alone cannot resolve without targeted deregulation.^[54] Empirical evaluations underscore these shortfalls, with surveys indicating that while some spouses report increased confidence from support programs, aggregate employment gains remain elusive due to entrenched cultural and logistical hurdles not mitigated by the initiative's framework of private-sector exhortations.^[55]^[56] DoD data further reveal ongoing recruitment and attrition pressures, such as the Army's 25% contract non-completion rate among post-2022 enlistees, which family stability factors—including spousal career disruptions—exacerbate, even as overall FY2024 recruiting rebounded modestly amid broader economic incentives.^[57]^[58] Perspectives diverge along ideological lines: left-leaning assessments, often from administration reports, praise the campaign for elevating public awareness and catalyzing initial veteran hiring surges during economic upturns, attributing visibility to indirect retention benefits.^[41] In contrast, right-leaning analyses favor unmediated private enterprise and policy reforms like licensing reciprocity over government-orchestrated alliances, arguing that self-reliance and reduced regulatory friction offer more durable mobility than publicity-driven voluntarism, which risks substituting optics for accountability.^[36] Such debates question whether the initiative's model—prioritizing pledges over enforceable incentives—genuinely alters incentives for employers or families, especially given confounding variables like national labor markets.^[59]

Unresolved Challenges for Military Families

Surveys indicate persistent dissatisfaction among military families, with only 32% of active-duty respondents in the Blue Star Families' 2024 Military Family Lifestyle Survey recommending service to young relatives, compared to 55% in 2016.^[60]^[61] This drop correlates with recruitment shortfalls, as family endorsement influences enlistment propensity amid broader retention pressures from deployment cycles and lifestyle strains.^[62] Financial and housing inadequacies exacerbate these issues, with 50% of service members prioritizing pay concerns and 44% citing housing in the 2024 Blue Star survey.^[61] The Department of Defense's 2024 Active Duty Spouse Survey revealed that fewer than half of spouses report satisfaction with military life, 40% experience financial hardship, and 61% face anxiety, often tied to relocation costs and Basic Allowance for Housing shortfalls in competitive markets.^[63]^[64] These structural gaps persist despite policy adjustments, as civilian sector wages outpace military compensation, undermining long-term family stability without targeted incentives like enhanced dwell time or pay competitiveness. Deployment-related trauma further compounds family distress, with empirical studies linking parental absences to elevated emotional and behavioral problems in children, including increased anxiety and depression rates.^[65]^[66] Spouses exhibit higher psychological strain, such as marital instability and depressive symptoms, during reintegration phases, as documented in longitudinal analyses of deployment effects.^[67]^[68] These ripple effects, rooted in repeated separations rather than isolated events, highlight causal pathways from operational tempo to familial mental health erosion, outpacing wellness interventions by emphasizing proximity and predictability over ancillary supports.

Evolution and Recent Developments

Continuity Across Administrations

The Joining Forces initiative originated in the Obama administration (2011–2017), where it prioritized securing private sector pledges for veteran and military spouse employment, achieving commitments for over 1 million hiring and training opportunities by 2016.^[41] High-profile endorsements from celebrities and corporations drove these efforts, emphasizing public-private partnerships to address post-9/11 transition challenges for service members and families.^[1] Under the Trump administration (2017–2021), the program's White House webpage was removed shortly after inauguration, signaling reduced centralized oversight, though private sector commitments from prior pledges persisted independently.^[22] Support for military families shifted toward integration with Department of Veterans Affairs reforms, including expansions in healthcare access via the 2018 VA MISSION Act, and aligned with broader deregulation policies that eased barriers for veteran entrepreneurship by simplifying business certifications and licensing. This approach favored market-driven solutions over new pledging campaigns, reflecting an emphasis on reducing government intervention while maintaining economic opportunities for veterans. The Biden administration (2021 onward) revived the initiative through Joining Forces 2.0, announced in January 2021, with renewed caregiver support pledges, including the November 2021 partnership with the Hidden Helpers Coalition to aid 2.3 million children of wounded, ill, or injured service members and veterans.^[69]^[70] Despite varying emphases—from pledge-heavy mobilization under Obama and Biden to deregulatory facilitation under Trump—the program's core non-partisan framework endured without major funding cuts, underscoring bipartisan consensus on bolstering the all-volunteer force through sustained private and public commitments.^[71]

Post-2020 Updates and Future Outlook

In April 2021, First Lady Jill Biden relaunched the Joining Forces initiative, emphasizing employment, entrepreneurship, education, and wellness priorities tailored to military spouses and caregivers amid post-pandemic recovery needs.^[72]^[73] This reboot incorporated virtual engagement strategies to sustain private sector pledges, adapting to restrictions on in-person events while expanding access to telework resources for transitioning families.^[74] By 2024, Joining Forces advanced entrepreneurship support through collaborations like the Department of Defense's Spouse Education and Career Opportunities program, offering professional coaching packages to military spouses pursuing business ventures, with over 500 spouses funded for educational and entrepreneurial pursuits in related initiatives.^[75]^[76] In February 2024, the initiative released a federal guide for recruiting military spouses, aiming to address employment barriers exacerbated by frequent relocations.^[74] Events continued into early 2025, including a January White House celebration of Biden-Harris Administration efforts and announcements for streamlined support services for military children with disabilities via public-private partnerships.^[77]^[78] The Department of Defense reported a recruitment rebound in fiscal year 2024, enlisting approximately 225,000 personnel—25,000 more than the prior year—though retention challenges persist, with family economic stability identified as a key factor in service member decisions to reenlist.^[79]^[80] A April 2025 American Enterprise Institute report on veteran transitions critiqued fragmented government support systems, recommending data-driven reallocations toward efficient, personalized services like those from nonprofit models to improve outcomes without expanding bureaucracy.^[36] Looking ahead, escalating global tensions, including peer competitions with China and Russia, underscore the need for robust family support to sustain the all-volunteer force, as empirical retention data links spousal entrepreneurship and employment portability to lower attrition rates.^[36] If federal coordination remains inefficient—as evidenced by overlapping programs yielding uneven results—private sector-led innovations may increasingly dominate, prioritizing measurable impacts on family resilience over symbolic pledges.^[37]

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Military Housing: DOD Should Address Critical Supply and ... - GAO
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Psychiatric Effects of Military Deployment on Children and Families
A survey showed 20 percent of military spouses reported increases in problem behavior exhibited by their children at home in response to parental deployment, ...
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The Impact of Military Deployment and Reintegration on Children ...
First, across all age groups, deployment of a parent may be related to increased emotional and behavioral difficulties for children, including higher rates of ...
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The Impact of Deployment on Parental, Family and Child Adjustment ...
Greater deployment exposure was related to impaired family functioning and marital instability. Parental depressive and posttraumatic stress symptoms were ...
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MOAA Joins Jill Biden in Announcing Joining Forces 2.0
Jan 15, 2021 · During the Jan. 14 announcement, Jill Biden introduced Rory Brosius as the incoming executive director of Joining Forces. Brosius is no stranger ...
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Joining Forces and Hidden Helpers Coalition Pledge Support to ...
Nov 10, 2021 · A new initiative designed to create supportive programming for and bring awareness to the 2.3 million children of wounded, ill or injured service members or ...
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Elizabeth Dole Foundation Launches Hidden Helpers to Focus on ...
Apr 29, 2021 · The Foundation is teaming with Wounded Warrior Project® (WWP) and the Biden Administration's Joining Forces program to build the Hidden Helpers ...
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Joining Forces Initiative | Project Evergreen
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Jill Biden announces next steps for military family program - KVUE
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FACT SHEET: Biden-Harris Administration Announces New Actions ...
Apr 17, 2024 · In February 2024, Joining Forces released a Guide to Recruiting and Hiring Military Spouses to: equip federal hiring managers and their ...
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Military OneSource provides options to military spouses, family ...
Apr 25, 2024 · Through SECO, the Defense Department offers an "entrepreneur coaching package" to military spouses. "This is with professional, no-kidding ...
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Military Family Impact: Celebrating Victories and Moving Ahead for a ...
We awarded $558,000 in funding to 535 military spouses to pursue various educational and entrepreneurial endeavors. Bloom: Empowering the Military Teen. Our ...
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First Lady Jill Biden Hosts a Joining Forces Celebration at the White ...
Jan 16, 2025 · First Lady Jill Biden hosts a Joining Forces event to celebrate the Biden-Harris Administration's work to support military and veteran ...Missing: initiative post-
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Jill Biden Announces Plan to Help Military Children with Disabilities
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Military services upping recruiting goals after rebound in 2024
Oct 30, 2024 · The Air Force just barely met its recruiting goal of 27,100 troops in 2024, but plans to increase that goal to 32,500 in 2025, said Brig. Gen.
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Navigating a Changing Military Recruitment Environment - RAND
Apr 8, 2025 · The civilian unemployment rate for 16–24-year-olds has risen slightly since mid-2023, although it remains historically low. Past research ...