While Contractors Make Hundreds of Billions, Military Families Struggle to Put Food on the Table

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2023 is about to approve over $858 billion in spending for military purposes, more than half of which will go to private companies. CEO’s of the top five weapons contractors average over $20 million a year in compensation. Yet despite this lavish spending, significant numbers of military families are struggling to put food on the table.

This problem is explained in detail in the latest episode of the podcast Things That Go Boom, entitled “Are Military Families Really Going Hungry?” Citing statistics from the Military Families Assistance Network (MFAN), the podcast notes that one in six military families can be considerd “food insecure,” up from one in eight families in 2019, before the pandemic. The U.S. Department of Agriculture defines food insecurity as “a lack of consistent access to enough food for every person in a household to live an active, healthy life.” As one advocate for military families notes in the podcast, that means that “military families are going hungry.”

How can this be? There are a number of factors. Families with two or more children who are new to the service can have a hard time making ends meet, especially if they live off base and have high housing costs. Spouses often can’t work due to the limited availability of child care, and the need to work around erratic schedules of their partner serving in the military. Unexpected expenses – a car breakdown, a medical crisis – also put pressure on the ability to provide adequate nutrition. Higher pay would help solve the problem, but there are other ways to alleviate it: reducing how often families have to move, making it easier for them to access government benefits like the Women Infants and Children (WIC) nutrition program, or even the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly referred to as food stamps.

The Biden administration has acknowledged the problem and is making a good faith effort to resolve it. Congress has weighed in as well. Next year there will be a Basic Needs Allowance (BNA) for families earning 30 percent or less above the poverty level; but advocates for military families are concerned that bureaucratic criteria may mean that not all families in need will be eligible, and argue that the income threshold should be higher – perhaps 200 percent of the poverty level.

Even if all of these reforms are made, one military family advocate told podcast interviewer Laicie Heeley of Inkstick Media that the multiple deployments of military personnel that have become commonplace during this century “make things harder for military familes” and suggests that the issue of food insecurity in the force is tied to larger questions of war and peace. A policy of constantly being ready for global intervention, and of fighting multiple wars – many of them unnecessary or counterproductive – puts pressure on military families that more money alone will not solve. Doing right by the troops calls not just for better benefits, but for a fresh look at the impacts of current U.S. military strategies.