"The Dismal Career Opportunities for Military Spouses"

Atlantic:

A recent Department of Defense survey found that a quarter of military spouses are unemployed—a rate roughly six times the 2017 national average of about 4 percent (according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics) and nearly two and a half times the rate in the majority of the country’s most impoverished neighborhoods.

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Of the military spouses who do work, more than half say they are working in positions that they are overqualified for.

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nearly 35 percent of military spouses who do work require professional licenses to maintain their status as doctors, lawyers, or teachers, for example. Those licenses often don’t transfer across state lines—a major issue considering military families are 10 times more likely to have moved across state lines than nonmilitary families.

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Other [companies], however, take advantage of the precariousness of the community’s financial situation. Multilevel-marketing corporations are notorious for targeting vulnerable women who are desperate for the income that traditional work won’t give them, and as such, the military-spouse community has become a major opportunity for direct-sales businesses that aggressively pursue those who seek flexible hours, a salary, and human interaction outside the home. According to a study on the Federal Trade Commission’s website, approximately 99 percent of employees lose money by joining these businesses, putting these families further in the hole financially than when they started.