By MOAA Staff

While MOAA and other advocacy groups continue to address food security concerns among military families, such problems don’t vanish when a servicemember leaves uniform.

Working-age veterans are 7.4% more likely to face food insecurity than their civilian counterparts, according to a 2021 report from the Agriculture Department (USDA). About 1.4 million veterans – 7.5% of the veteran population – were food insecure as of 2023, per a Rand study, and they are less likely to take part in federal food assistance programs than nonveterans, according to the Government Accountability Office.

It’s a “pervasive problem,” according to a recent letter from MOAA and fellow national nonprofit groups to leaders of the House and Senate Armed Services committees – one that USDA, the Pentagon, and the VA must work together to address.

[READ THE LETTER]

A bipartisan Senate amendment to the FY 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) takes significant steps toward that collaboration. Introduced by Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), the amendment would:

• Require a study identifying how servicemembers “are provided information about the availability of federal nutrition assistance programs as they transition out of active duty service.”
  
  
• Increase awareness of such programs for transitioning members identified as at risk of food insecurity.
  
  
• Create an interagency working group across DoW, the VA, and USDA to address “underlying efforts contributing to food insecurity” for transitioning members. The group would submit a report to all three departments designed to identify barriers to collaboration, identify best practices, and improve coordination between the departments on the issue.

[RELATED: The NDAA and Military Pay]

Those who serve, and their families, “accept tremendous sacrifice as part of their mission to protect our country,” states the letter, authored by the National Military Family Association and signed by MOAA and other stakeholder groups including Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Military Family Advisory Network, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, the American Legion, Blue Star Families, Feeding America, and MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger. “As a country, we owe it to them to do everything we can to ensure that they are successful in their transition to civilian life.”

The must-pass NDAA is one of several high-profile pieces of legislation on the docket for the post-election session of the 119th Congress. Keep up with the bill’s progress by visiting MOAA’s advocacy news page and registering at our Legislative Action Center.