Veteran Status and Material Hardship: The Moderating Influence of Disability

Veterans are a sizable and policy-relevant demographic group in the United States, yet little is known about their economic well-being. Although having a work-limiting disability is known to be associated with material hardship, no known study compares material hardship between veteran households and nonveteran households or investigates whether work-limiting disability moderates the association between veteran status and material hardship. This study uses data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation to examine how household work-limiting disability status moderates the relationship between veteran status and the likelihood of material hardship. Results suggest the following: nondisabled-veteran households report lower or equivalent levels of material hardship than do households with no veteran or disabled member; regardless of whether a veteran is present, households that include a disabled person have higher levels of every type of hardship than other households do; and disabled-veteran households experience statistically significantly more hardship than nondisabled-veteran households do.