While war and rumors of war are escalating under the Biden-Harris administration, America’s active-duty recruitment rates are the lowest we have seen in decades. Recovering from this shortage will be a challenge, but the next administration has a clear opportunity to rebuild America’s military dominance by focusing on not only recruitment but also retaining military families.
Recruitment is down due to a multitude of factors, such as declining confidence in the military, the overwhelming obesity and medical problems in our youth making them ineligible for enlistment, and the fear of service-related emotional and physical injuries such as PTSD and suicide.
Blue Star Families’ 2023 Military Family Lifestyle Survey shows that just eight years ago, 55% of active-duty service members were likely to recommend military service. But, by 2023, that number fell to only 32%. These statistics coincide with the recruitment decline since 2021.
During President Donald Trump’s administration, from 2017 to 2020, all branches of the armed forces met or exceeded their recruitment goals, except in fiscal 2018 when the Army missed its goal by a small margin. This is a sharp contrast to the recruitment numbers from 2022 to 2024 under the Biden-Harris administration. In 2022, the Army was 15,099 recruits or 25% short of its goal. In 2023, the Marines and Space Force were the only branches to meet their recruitment goals.
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