Tim Kaine on Military Spouses' Employment

From U.S. Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA); comment below:

"

This is a big issue that hasn’t gotten much attention: the unemployment rate among military spouses is anywhere from 12 to 25 percent — between 3 and 6 times higher than the national average. After speaking with military spouses across Virginia, I’ve heard again and again about the difficulty spouses face in finding careers and meaningful work as a result of frequent moves and inadequate access to affordable childcare, education, and career training. This reality causes financial insecurity for military families and hurts our military readiness.

That is why this week I introduced the Military Spouse Employment Act – comprehensive legislation to address military spouse unemployment. My bill expands hiring and career opportunities, addresses access to continuing education programs, helps ensure military families can find affordable child care, and provides for better transition and counseling resources for military spouses.

As a nation, we’ve made progress to reduce veterans' unemployment — an issue I’ve been focused on through the Troop Talent Act, my first piece of legislation in 2013, which eased servicemembers’ transition from active duty to the civilian workforce. While we continue to keep driving the veterans unemployment rate lower, there’s no reason we can’t make similar progress to bring down military spouse unemployment.

I hope you’ll join me in shining a light on this important issue. SHARE this video if you agree: We must support our military families and pass the Military Spouse Employment Act.

Sincerely,

[nice signature graphic Google doesn't like: Tim Kaine]"

Comment: What government can do to relieve the problems of under-employment and under-payment is to stop regulating self-employed people to death. Review every regulation about who can legally be paid to do what, identify the death directly attributed to unlicensed practice of a trade/job/profession (medicine, mostly), and, if unlicensed practitioners have not killed anybody, open the field. Tight licensing requirements in businesses like hair care can actually give customers lower quality; in any case, whether it does any harm for a barber not to have finished high school is surely the kind of subjective decision best left to the customer.

Tragically, "job programs" sound good but they don't translate directly into actual jobs. Young military spouses are likely to be young mothers. Young mothers don't need to be told to show up early looking skinny and overgroomed and leave their families at home; they need to be allowed to do jobs they can do in their homes, with their families. All government has to do is step out of their way.

This is the kind of idea you'd think, based on their rhetoric, Democrats would back. It's also the kind of idea no high-profile D politician seems to want to touch with a bargepole these days.