Honoring Veterans

by | Nov 11, 2021 | Uncategorized | 0 comments

Veteran’s Day has celebrated our service men and women since the official armistice went into effect at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, marking the end of fighting in World War I. Originally called Armistice Day by President Woodrow Wilson, in hopes that World War I would be the “war to end all wars,” the name was changed to “Veterans Day” in 1954 after World War II required the largest mobilization in U.S. history.

Approximately 18 million Americans are veterans. More than 5.2 million of our veterans are disabled. That’s about 29.3% of all veterans, which is more than twice the 14.2% value for nonveterans.

U.S. veterans are less likely to be living in poverty. Approximately 15.1% of Americans have income below the poverty level, compared to 6.8% of veterans.

Historically, the vast majority of veterans are men. Among all veterans, only 8.9% are female but the female composition more than doubles among younger veterans – those aged 18 to 34 years old. Of that group, 18.1% are female.

In terms of diversity, of Americans 18 and above,  7.6% of whites are veterans and 6.8% of blacks are veterans. Among female Americans, 2.0% of black females 18 and over are veterans, while only 1.2% of white females 18 or over are veterans. For men, 14.3% of white men 18 and over are veterans compared to 12.3% of black men.

It’s no surprise that generally speaking, counties with large populations tend to have a larger numbers of veterans. The top 10 counties for number of veterans are:

  • Los Angeles County, California………….. 261,742
  • Maricopa County, Arizona……………….. 253,833
  • San Diego County, California…………….. 217,188
  • Harris County, Texas………………………. 159,618
  • Cook County, Illinois……………………….. 156,000
  • Bexar County, Texas……………………….. 145,733
  • Clark County, Nevada……………………… 142,776
  • Riverside County, California……………… 122,308
  • Tarrant County, Texas…………………….. 108,329
  • Orange County, California………………… 107,811

We can also evaluate these large counties by the percent composition. Los Angeles has 3.1% of America’s total population, but only 1.4% of all veterans. This can be converted into an index, where below 100 means the subgroup – in this case veterans – is underrepresented in the region. Over 100 means it is overrepresented. Looking at the data this way, LA indexes at 46.5.

The counties making up New York City also all index quite low for veterans:

  • Richmond (Staten Island…………………………. 56.5
  • New York (Manhattan)…………………………… 34.5
  • Queens……………………………………………….. 33.0
  • Bronx………………………………………………….. 31.4
  • Kings (Brooklyn)……………………………………. 25.7

Counties with a large active-duty population (counties with military bases) often have a large veteran population. Among the top 25 counties El Paso County, Colorado (Fort Carson among others) has an index of 216.2. Pierce County, Washington (175.7), Honolulu (135.5), San Diego (117.4) are just a few other examples.

We thank our veterans for their service to our country and celebrate them for their sacrifice to the common good.

Data sourced by StateBook from U.S. Census Bureau; 2019 American Community Survey 5 Year Estimates