Wednesday, 18 Dec 2024 Issue#012
Quote of the week: "The first step is clearly defining what it is you’re after, because without knowing that, you’ll never get it." – Halle Berry
Hello readers, just a quick admin note before we get into this weeks issue. This is the last issue of the year. There will not be any issues next week or the week after. We're taking a little time off to spend with family. We'll get back at it in the new year, look for the next issue on 8 January 2025!
Hopefully you have successfully dodged all the drones seemingly flying all over the place via New Jersey, and have a chance to look at our last issue of 2024. We'll look at some VA life insurance news, job market trends and the future of Veteran Benefits.
VA Lowers Life Insurance Premiums
It is not very often that you see an insurance provider lower rates. Many of us are probably used to seeing our rates for all types of insurance increase, especially since the pandemic. Homeowners insurance nearly doubled for many people in Florida with rates expected to climb again in 2025 in the wake of two significant storms.
There is a bright spot though. The Department of Veterans Affairs announced that more than 3 million Veterans, service members, and spouses who receive life insurance from VA’s programs will receive a discount on premiums starting in the spring of 2025!
If you are transitioning, you'll get a chance to purchase Veterans Group Life Insurance, which is like SGLI for Veterans. Fortunately, VGLI is one of the programs that will see a rate decrease. VGLI members will see their premium rates discounted between 2% to 17%, depending on the Veteran’s age, with an average discount of 11%.
Life insurance needs to be part of your transition financial plan. VGLI may be a better option for some, and is definitely worth looking into.
Source: VA
Job Market
We have written about the trend with in technology job growth in the past. It is worth another look given the projected growth in this area over the next few years. That's because this growth blows a lot of other industries out of the water. Let's break down what we mean here.
Tech jobs in the U.S. are predicted to grow at twice the rate of the overall job market over the next decade. Driving that growth will is the creation of over 1 million additional jobs.
Research also suggests that tech workers will have a lot of choices on where they work. As many as 90% of companies will experience a IT skills shortage as soon as 2026, costing those businesses over $5.5 trillion in lost revenue. In fact, non-tech companies actually hired more tech workers than tech companies did last year.
The average salary is north of $110,000 here in the U.S. for tech workers. Naturally many assume that is probably for the workers that have a four year degree, current certifications, and experience. You'd assume wrong however, as many companies are raising salaries while also loosening entry requirements for their tech roles.
As you can probably imagine, AI is driving a lot of this projected growth. Job listings referencing AI doubled from 2021 to 2023 signaling a huge opportunity for those with AI and/or machine learning skills.
We understand the tech roles are not for everyone, however there are a lot of military career fields that require tech skills. Some more direct than others. In addition, many service members have access to low or no cost training & education that could help them bolster tech skills. If you are looking for a role post military, including those tech skills on your resume could end up being very lucrative.
Source: TechTarget
Are Veteran Benefits at Risk?
First off, Honor & Purpose is non-partisan and strives to stay above politically motivated topics and opinions. This article is really about the response to a topic rather than support for a particular position.
If you are in the midst of a transition, or even a newly transitioned service member few things will grab your attention quicker than changes to Veteran benefits.
There have been a lot of headlines swirling lately that the incoming administration, notably the "Department of Government Efficiency" (DOGE) is going to slash Veteran benefits. As it stands right now, those headlines are a bit misleading. This is a perfect case of needing to read past the headline.
First off, DOGE is not an official government agency and has no power to slash any budget on their own. They can certainly make suggestions, but in this case it would take Congress to reduce or adjust Veteran benefits.
Veteran programs have not been singled out by anyone as needing to be cut. So then, why is there so much talk about it? Well, what was said is that the U.S. Government should not be spending taxpayer money on programs whose authorizations have been allowed to expire. The authorization that funds VA Healthcare expired in 1998. While that sounds bad, its because most of us don't really know what an authorization is.
The whole expired authorization talk makes it seem like Congress forgot that it had a bunch of subscriptions set to auto renew. That is not that case and is much more nuanced than that. Congressional lawmaking is generally split into two categories.
- Authorizations - Grant the authority for government to carry out a specific duty.
- Appropriates - Grant the ability to spend money for particular functions.
Congress uses these two functions together by first creating a program with an authorization and appropriating funds needed to run it. An expired authorization means that the Government cannot add more appropriations for that particular program without first revisiting the authorization.
Veteran issues, including healthcare and other benefits remains one of the few things that has bi-partisan support. It's unlikely that Congress would move to cut those benefits when so many of their constituents receive them.
It still is worth speaking up though. If you are concerned about your current or future benefits contact your representatives. Use this site to find who your representatives are and how to contact them: Common Cause
Source: Yahoo
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