CNN's Judy Woodruff got it Wrong: The Poor are not Disproportionately Represented in the Military

During the Presidential Candidate Forum on National Service on CNN on September 11th, 2008, Judy Woodruff, who normally has her facts solidly in place (and who I greatly respect), suggested that America’s current volunteer military is overly represented by the poor.[1] Others have also erroneously made this case. They have gone so far as to say that in order to ensure proportional representation, the military draft system must be resurrected to compel citizens of economically diverse backgrounds to serve in the military.[2]

Ironically, a military draft would increase the burden on the poorest military aged Americans that proponents think they would be helping. According to a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) study, poor recruits are not disproportionately represented in the military.[3] In fact, any argument that the poor are overly represented fails when exposed to the fact that the lowest 10 percentile of American families on the socio-economic scale provided just 6 percent of total recruits.[4] Furthermore, the bottom twenty percent of U.S. families accounted for only 14 percent of recruits in that study.[5] This is in sharp contrast to what the Department of Defense reports about the richest one-fifth of the families in America. They provide 22 percent of recruits.[6] The poor citizens of America, therefore, are not fighting disproportionately on behalf of the rich. If anything, it’s the other way around.

[1] Judy Woodruff made this statement when questioning John McCain during The Presidential Candidate Forum on National Service, 11 Sep 08.
[2] CBO, “The All-Volunteer Military: Issues and Performance,” The Congress of the United States, Congressional Budget Office, July 2007, p. ix.
[3] CBO, “The All-Volunteer Military: Issues and Performance,” The Congress of the United States, Congressional Budget Office, July 2007, p. ix.
[4] CBO, “The All-Volunteer Military: Issues and Performance,” The Congress of the United States, Congressional Budget Office, July 2007, p. ix.
[5] Heritage Foundation calculations based on data from U.S. Department of Defense, Office of the Undersecretary of Defense. January 2003- September 2003 NPS Enlisted Accessions and U.S. Bureau of the Census, United States Census 2000. Summary File 3 at www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/2002/sumfile3html
[6] Id.