MILITARY SPOUSE 

EMPLOYMENT 

PROGRAMS 

DOD Can Improve 

Guidance and 

Performance 

Monitoring 

Report to Congressional Committees

December 2012 

GAO-13-60 

United States Government Accountability Office

GAO 
United States Government Accountability Office

Highlights of GAO-13-60, a report to 

congressional committees 

December 2012 

MILITARY SPOUSE EMPLOYMENT PROGRAMS

DOD Can Improve Guidance and Performance 

Monitoring

Why GAO Did This Study

The approximately 725,000 spouses of

active duty servicemembers face 

challenges to maintaining a career, 

including having to move frequently. 

Their employment is often important to 

the financial well-being of their families. 

For these reasons, DOD has taken 

steps in recent years to help military 

spouses obtain employment. 

Moreover, the federal government has 

hiring mechanisms to help military 

spouses obtain federal jobs. 

The National Defense Authorization 

Act for Fiscal Year 2012 requires GAO 

to report on the programs that help 

military spouses obtain jobs. This 

report examines: (1) DOD’s recent 

efforts to help military spouses obtain 

employment, (2) DOD’s steps to 

assess effectiveness of these efforts, 

and (3) the hiring mechanisms to help 

military spouses obtain federal jobs. 

GAO conducted interviews with DOD, 

the Office of Personnel Management, 

and two advocacy groups; conducted 

site visits; analyzed relevant data; and 

reviewed relevant documents, laws, 

and regulations.

GAO Recommends

GAO recommends that DOD consider 

incorporating (1) key collaboration 

practices as it develops its spouse 

employment guidance, and (2) key 

attributes of successful performance 

measures as it develops and finalizes 

its performance measures. DOD 

partially concurred with the two 

recommendations, citing steps it has 

already taken. GAO recognizes DOD’s 

efforts, but given their preliminary 

nature, GAO continues to believe DOD 

would benefit from further incorporating 

key practices and attributes. 

What GAO Found

The Department of Defense (DOD) has recently created three new programs 

to help military spouses obtain employment: (1) the Military Spouse Career 

Advancement Accounts (MyCAA) tuition assistance program, (2) the Military 

Spouse Employment Partnership (MSEP), which connects military spouses with 

employers, (3) and the Military Spouse Career Center, consisting of a call center 

and a website for military spouses to obtain counseling and information. DOD’s 

goals for these programs are to reduce unemployment among military spouses 

and close their wage gap with civilian spouses. Aside from these new programs, 

military spouses can also use employment assistance programs that the military 

services have long operated on DOD installations. However, GAO’s site visits 

and interviews indicate that there may be gaps in coordination across the various 

programs that result in confusion for military spouses. Currently, DOD does not 

have guidance describing its overall strategy and how all of its programs should 

coordinate to help military spouses obtain employment, but DOD is in the 

process of developing such guidance.

DOD is not yet able to measure the overall effectiveness of its military spouse 

employment programs and its performance monitoring is limited, but DOD is 

taking steps to improve its monitoring and evaluation. To determine whether its 

programs have been effective in reducing unemployment among military spouses 

and closing their wage gap with civilian spouses, DOD is planning to contract 

with a research organization for a long-term evaluation. With regard to its 

performance monitoring for these programs, DOD has performance measures for

MSEP and MyCAA, but has no measures for the Career Center. In addition, 

reliability of the data is questionable on the MSEP performance measure 

because DOD’s data are derived from an informal and inconsistent process. 

DOD’s other measure—the percentage of courses funded by MyCAA tuition 

assistance that military spouses complete with a passing grade—is a useful 

interim measure for monitoring how the funds are being used, but it does not 

provide information on whether the funds help military spouses obtain 

employment. DOD has efforts underway to improve its performance monitoring, 

including identifying additional measures it would like to track and collecting 

additional data on participants’ employment and educational outcomes. 

The federal government has two hiring mechanisms that can provide military 

spouses who meet the eligibility criteria with some advantages in the federal 

hiring process. The first mechanism—a non-competitive authority—allows federal 

agencies the option of hiring qualified military spouses without going through the 

competitive process. The second mechanism—DOD’s Military Spouse 

Preference program—provides military spouses priority in selection for certain 

DOD jobs. These hiring mechanisms can increase a military spouse’s chances of 

obtaining federal employment, but they do not guarantee that military spouses 

will obtain the job they apply for. In fiscal year 2011, agencies used the 

noncompetitive authority to hire about 1,200 military spouses, which represented 

approximately 0.5 percent of all federal hires that year. Military spouses 

represented 0.4 percent of the working-age population in 2010. With regard to 

the Military Spouse Preference program, DOD has placed about 12,500 military 

spouses into civil service jobs in the past 10 years, which includes both new hires 

and conversions of DOD employees.

View GAO-13-60. For more information, 

contact Andrew Sherrill at (202) 512-7215 or 

sherrilla@gao.gov. 
Page i GAO-13-60 Military Spouse Employment Programs

Letter 1 

Background 3

DOD Has Initiated Programs and Is Developing Guidance for 

Collaboration 6

DOD Currently Cannot Measure the Effectiveness of Its Programs, 

but Efforts Are Underway 13

Two Hiring Mechanisms Can Provide Advantages to Military 

Spouses Seeking Federal Employment 18

Conclusions 22

Recommendations for Executive Action 23

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 24

Appendix I Objectives, Scope, and Methodology 27

Appendix II DOD’s Spending on Military Spouse Employment Programs 30

Appendix III Comments from the Department of Defense 31

Appendix IV GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 35

Tables

Table 1: Key Attributes of Successful Performance Measures 17

Table 2: Expenditures on Selected DOD Employment Programs for 

Military Spouses, Fiscal Years 2009 to 2011 30

Figures

Figure 1: Military Services’ Employment Assistance Programs 5

Figure 2: DOD Employment Programs Targeted to Military Spouses 7

Contents 
Page ii GAO-13-60 Military Spouse Employment Programs

Abbreviations

Career Center Military Spouse Career Center

CPDF Central Personnel Data File

DOD Department of Defense

MSEP Military Spouse Employment Partnership

MSP Military Spouse Preference

MyCAA Military Spouse Career Advancement Accounts 

OPM Office of Personnel Management

SECO Spouse Education and Career Opportunities

TAP Transition Assistance Program

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Page 1 GAO-13-60 Military Spouse Employment Programs

United States Government Accountability Office 

Washington, DC 20548

December 13, 2012

Congressional Committees

For many of the approximately 725,000 spouses of active duty 

servicemembers, the special conditions of military life may make it difficult 

to start or maintain a career. Military spouses may have to move 

frequently to keep families together when servicemembers are relocated, 

or they may have to bear a larger share of family responsibilities, 

particularly during servicemembers’ deployments. Some studies have 

found that being a military spouse is correlated with a higher 

unemployment rate and a lower wage on average, compared to civilian 

spouses.1 The employment situation of military spouses, in turn, affects 

the well-being of the military family and may also influence whether a 

servicemember chooses to remain in the military. For these reasons, the 

Department of Defense (DOD) has recently made new efforts to help 

military spouses obtain employment. In addition, the federal government 

has established special hiring mechanisms targeted to those military 

spouses interested in obtaining federal jobs.

The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 mandates 

that we review the DOD spouse employment programs as well as the 

federal hiring mechanisms targeted to help military spouses.2 This report 

addresses the following questions: (1) What efforts has DOD recently 

made to help military spouses prepare for and obtain employment? (2) 

What steps has DOD taken to assess the effectiveness of these 

programs? (3) What hiring mechanisms exist to help military spouses 

obtain federal jobs? In June and July 2012, we provided briefings to 

cognizant committee staff. This report summarizes those briefings and 

provides additional information.

To identify DOD’s efforts to help military spouses prepare for and obtain 

employment and to examine the steps DOD has taken to assess the 

 

1

Nelson Lim and David Schulker, Measuring Underemployment Among Military Spouses 

(Santa Monica, CA: The RAND Corporation, 2010); Nelson Lim, Daniela Golinelli, and 

Michelle Cho, ‘Working Around the Military’ Revisited: Spouse Employment in the 2000 

Census Data (Santa Monica, CA: The RAND Corporation, 2007). 

2

Pub. L. No. 112-81, § 578, 125 Stat. 1298.

 
 

Page 2 GAO-13-60 Military Spouse Employment Programs

effectiveness of these programs, we conducted interviews with key 

officials involved in DOD’s spouse employment programs from DOD 

headquarters and each of the military services (Air Force, Army, Marine 

Corps, and Navy). We also reviewed DOD’s program descriptions, 

funding data, strategic planning documents, performance reports, 

guidance, and other relevant documents. To identify the hiring 

mechanisms that can help military spouses obtain federal jobs, we 

interviewed officials at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and 

DOD’s civilian personnel office and reviewed relevant federal laws, 

regulations, and guidance. To determine how many spouses were hired 

under these mechanisms, we analyzed data from OPM’s Central 

Personnel Data File (CPDF) and obtained data from DOD. We assessed 

the reliability of these data by reviewing relevant documents, interviewing 

DOD and OPM officials about the data, and conducting electronic testing 

of the CPDF data. We found the data sufficiently reliable for our 

purposes. To supplement the information we obtained from DOD central 

offices and OPM, we interviewed local program officials and spouses at 

three military installations in the Washington, D.C.-area—Fort Meade 

(Army and Navy programs), Joint Base Andrews (Air Force), and 

Henderson Hall (Marine Corps). The information we obtained from these 

site visits is not generalizable. We also interviewed two advocacy groups 

for military families to obtain their perspectives on DOD’s efforts to 

provide employment services to military spouses.

We conducted this performance audit from March 2012 to December 

2012, in accordance with generally accepted government auditing 

standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to 

obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for 

our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe 

that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings 

and conclusions based on our audit objectives (see appendix I for further 

information on our scope and methodology).
 

Page 3 GAO-13-60 Military Spouse Employment Programs

Among the 1.4 million active duty servicemembers in fiscal year 2011, 

over half (57 percent) were married, according to DOD’s data.3 More than 

90 percent of the spouses of active duty servicemembers were women. 

Recent studies have found that among those in the labor force, being a 

military spouse is correlated with a higher unemployment rate, compared 

to civilian spouses.4 In addition, among those employed, being a military 

spouse is correlated with a lower wage on average, relative to civilian 

spouses. Researchers have posited several possible reasons for this. 

First, military spouses tend to be a younger group than civilian spouses, 

as well as more likely to be caring for young children. As a result, a larger 

proportion of military spouses are more likely to be at the beginning of 

their careers compared to civilian spouses, and a larger proportion have 

childrearing responsibilities that may make obtaining or maintaining a job 

more challenging. Second, military spouses move more often than civilian 

spouses as a whole, which may make it more difficult to retain jobs and 

develop careers. Some have also speculated that employers may be less 

willing to hire military spouses than other populations, for example, if they 

are concerned that military spouses will relocate. Third, demanding work 

schedules for the servicemembers may mean that spouses bear a larger 

share of childrearing or other family responsibilities, particularly when 

servicemembers are deployed. One recent study controlled for many of 

these characteristics and found that they explained some, though not all, 

 

3

Department of Defense, 2011 Demographics: Profile of the Military Community 

(November 2012).

4

Lim, Golinelli, and Cho, 2007; Lim and Schulker, 2010. The 2007 study by Lim, Golinelli, 

and Cho examined differences in employment situations between military wives and 

civilian wives, as well as between military husbands and civilian husbands, using 2000 

Census data. This study found that among both wives and husbands, being married to an 

active duty servicemember was correlated with a higher unemployment rate and a lower 

wage on average, compared to their civilian counterparts. The 2010 study by Lim and 

Schulker examined differences in employment situations between military and civilian 

wives using data from the 2006 Current Population Survey data and a DOD of survey of 

military spouses. The study found that being a military wife was correlated with a higher 

unemployment rate relative to civilian wives. Both studies also found that being a military 

spouse was correlated with a lower rate of labor force participation, compared to civilian 

spouses.

Background

Employment Conditions of 

Military Spouses
 

Page 4 GAO-13-60 Military Spouse Employment Programs

of the correlation between being a military spouse and having a higher 

unemployment rate and lower average wage, relative to civilian spouses.5

Recognizing the challenges that military spouses face in beginning or 

maintaining a career, DOD has historically had efforts to help military 

spouses obtain employment. The military services have operated 

employment assistance programs at military installations since the 1980s. 

While these programs serve spouses, they also serve many other 

populations in the military community, including dependent children, 

active duty servicemembers, active Reserve and National Guard 

members, DOD civilian personnel, servicemembers transitioning to 

civilian life, wounded warriors, and DOD retirees (see fig. 1). These 

programs assist in a variety of ways, including providing referrals to job 

openings, job fairs, one-on-one employment counseling, and workshops 

on resume writing, networking, entrepreneurship, and other topics. These 

programs are often located at military installations’ family centers, where 

a variety of “family readiness services” are provided.6 These services may 

include relocation assistance (e.g., providing information on housing, child 

care, and schooling options), non-medical counseling, financial education 

and counseling, deployment assistance (e.g., educating servicemembers 

and their families about challenges they may face and services to help 

them cope), services for family members with special needs, child abuse 

and domestic violence prevention and response, emergency family 

 

5

Lim, Golinelli, and Cho, 2007. A 2010 study by Lim and Schulker controlled for several 

demographic and contextual factors and did not find significant differences in 

unemployment rates between military and civilian wives. However, they found that being a 

military wife was correlated with a greater likelihood of working part-time involuntarily and 

working in a job for which she might have more years of education than average among 

workers in her occupation, compared to civilian wives with similar characteristics. 

6

The family centers are the Airman and Family Readiness Center, Army Community 

Service, Marine Corps Community Services, and Navy Fleet and Family Support Center. 

DOD issued a new instruction on family readiness services in July 2012. Pursuant to that 

instruction, family readiness services are composed of both DOD-operated and 

community-based services that are delivered through a variety of access points, including 

Military and Family Support Centers (the new term that refers to family centers). The 

purpose of family readiness services is to help servicemembers and their families manage 

the challenges of daily living experienced in the unique context of military service. DOD 

Instruction 1342.22, Military Family Readiness (July 3, 2012).

DOD Employment 

Assistance Programs and 

Other Efforts to Help 

Military Spouses
 

Page 5 GAO-13-60 Military Spouse Employment Programs

assistance, and transition assistance to help servicemembers separating 

from the military and their families to reenter the civilian workforce.7

Figure 1: Military Services’ Employment Assistance Programs

Over the years, the Congress and the executive branch have sought to 

enhance the employment assistance provided to military spouses. In 

2001, Congress directed DOD to examine its spouse employment 

programs and develop partnerships with private-sector firms to provide for 

improved job portability for spouses, among other things.8 A study we 

conducted in 2002 discussed a number of efforts DOD was making, 

including holding a “spouse employment summit” to identify needed 

actions, establishing partnerships with private-sector employers, and 

seeking the Department of Labor’s assistance to resolve issues with 

different state residency and licensing requirements for particular 

occupations.9 More recently, in 2008, Congress authorized DOD to 

establish programs to assist spouses of active duty servicemembers in 

obtaining the education and training required for a degree, credential, 

education prerequisites, or professional license that expands employment 

 

7

Aside from the military services’ employment assistance programs, spouses may also 

access state-run employment centers mandated by the Workforce Investment Act of 1998, 

known as “one-stops.” At these one-stops, states and localities are required to provide 

access to the services of many federally funded employment and training programs. 

8

National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2002, Pub. Law No. 107-107, § 571, 

115 Stat. 1012, 1120 (2001).

9

GAO, Military Personnel: Active Duty Benefits Reflect Changing Demographics, but 

Opportunities Exist to Improve, GAO-02-935 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 18, 2002).
 

Page 6 GAO-13-60 Military Spouse Employment Programs

and portable career opportunities.10 Congress also authorized DOD to 

establish a pilot program to help military spouses secure internships at 

federal agencies by reimbursing agencies for the costs associated with 

the first year of employment of an eligible spouse.11 In 2011, the 

administration issued a report identifying commitments federal agencies 

made to help military spouses obtain employment.12 In that report, DOD 

committed to expanding an employer partnership program that the Army 

initiated in 2003 to the other military services, improving employment 

counseling, and providing financial assistance to help certain spouses 

obtain further education.

Since 2009, DOD has established three programs targeted to military 

spouses to help them obtain employment: (1) the Military Spouse Career 

Advancement Accounts (MyCAA) tuition assistance program; (2) the 

Military Spouse Employment Partnership (MSEP), which connects military 

spouses with employers; and (3) the Military Spouse Career Center,

consisting of a call center and a website through which spouses can 

obtain counseling and information. These three programs comprise 

DOD’s Spouse Education and Career Opportunities (SECO) initiative 

(see fig. 2). DOD has two goals for its SECO programs: (1) reduce 

unemployment among military spouses and (2) close their wage gap with 

civilian spouses.

 

10National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2009, Pub. Law No. 110-417, § 582, 

112 Stat. 4356, 4473 (2008). 

11National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010, Pub. Law No. 111-84, § 564, 

123 Stat. 2190, 2308 (2009). In fiscal year 2011, DOD piloted an internship program to 

help spouses obtain jobs with federal agencies. During the 1-year pilot program, DOD 

helped seven spouses obtain internships. DOD reimbursed federal agencies for the first 

year’s salary, benefits, and training costs for those spouses, with the intent that after the 

first year, they would be able to obtain permanent positions and career progression. DOD 

discontinued this pilot in fiscal year 2012 because according to a DOD official, it was 

difficult to promote the internship program to federal agencies. In addition, the official said 

there were existing hiring mechanisms to assist spouses in obtaining federal employment 

without expending DOD funds. 

12Strengthening our Military Families: Meeting America’s Commitment (January 2011). 

This report was issued pursuant to a presidential directive to national security staff 

(Presidential Study Directive #9).

DOD Has Initiated 

Programs and Is 

Developing Guidance 

for Collaboration
 

Page 7 GAO-13-60 Military Spouse Employment Programs

Figure 2: DOD Employment Programs Targeted to Military Spouses

Military Spouse Career Advancement Accounts (MyCAA): DOD created 

the MyCAA program to help spouses obtain further education and training 

toward a portable career. To enroll in this program, spouses must identify 

the course of study they want to pursue, develop an educational plan, and 

apply to DOD for tuition assistance. The tuition funds must be used for 

education or training toward a portable career field, defined by DOD and 

the Department of Labor as a high-growth, high-demand career field that 

is likely to have job openings near military installations.13 Since its 

inception in 2009, there have been several changes to the program’s 

eligibility criteria and benefits. After a pilot period, DOD established that 

any spouse of an active duty servicemember could participate in the 

program and could receive up to $6,000 in tuition funds for any continuing 

education, including educational programs to obtain certificates and 

licenses, as well as bachelor’s and advanced degrees.14 Due to concerns 

about rising costs and enrollment requests, however, DOD (1) tightened 

the eligibility criteria to target the program to spouses of junior 

servicemembers, (2) reduced the benefit amount to $4,000, and (3) 

restricted the funds’ use to the attainment of certificates and licenses for 

 

13According to DOD officials, DOD relies on the Department of Labor’s database of indemand occupations to identify portable careers eligible for MyCAA tuition assistance. 

DOD provides a list of portable careers on their Military OneSource website and 

encourages spouses to contact a Career Center counselor to help them identify portable 

careers. 

14MyCAA began in 2007 as a demonstration project with the Department of Labor to 

provide tuition assistance to spouses of junior servicemembers in eight states.
 

Page 8 GAO-13-60 Military Spouse Employment Programs

portable careers, not for bachelor’s or advanced degrees.15 In our site 

visits and interviews with advocacy groups, some felt that the program 

should be expanded to allow spouses to obtain higher-level degrees or 

enable more spouses to use the program. DOD officials said that 

MyCAA’s revised criteria reflects the original intent of the program and 

ensures fiscal sustainability. In fiscal year 2011, DOD spent 

approximately $55 million on the MyCAA program; however, MyCAA’s 

expenditures have fluctuated as the program has changed. Specifically, 

DOD’s spending increased in the first 2 years after it was launched, and 

then declined 70 percent in its third year, after DOD changed the eligibility 

criteria, benefit amount, and types of training or educational programs for 

which the funds could be used (see appendix II for further information on 

MyCAA expenditures). According to a DOD official, approximately 

125,000 spouses received MyCAA tuition assistance from October 2008 

to May 2012.

Military Spouse Employment Partnership (MSEP): DOD created MSEP in 

2011 as an expansion of an Army program to connect spouses from all 

services to employment opportunities at Fortune 500 companies, 

nonprofits, and government agencies.16 Specifically, MSEP establishes 

partnerships with employers who pledge to offer spouses transferrable, 

portable career opportunities. Any spouse interested in working for these 

employers then registers for MSEP and accesses MSEP’s web-based 

portal. The MSEP portal allows spouses to search for job openings 

posted by participating employers, build their resume, and apply for jobs. 

Currently, MSEP is partnering with more than 125 companies, according 

to DOD. In fiscal year 2011, DOD spent $1.2 million on the MSEP 

program for the contractors that operate and enhance the web-based 

portal and work with employers (see appendix II for further information on 

MSEP expenditures).

Military Spouse Career Center (the Career Center): The Career Center 

consists of a call center, through which spouses can speak with 

 

15Specifically, those eligible for MyCAA are spouses of servicemembers on active duty in 

pay grades E1 to E5, W-1 to W-2, and O-1 to O-2 who can start and complete their 

coursework while the servicemember is on Title 10 military orders. This includes spouses 

married to members of the National Guard and Reserve Components in these same pay 

grades.

16The MSEP program was an expansion of the Army Spouse Employment Partnership, 

which was instituted in 2003.
 

Page 9 GAO-13-60 Military Spouse Employment Programs

employment counselors, and a website with employment information.17

The counselors at the call center and the website provide assistance with 

spouses’ general employment needs, such as exploring career options, 

resume writing, interviewing, and job search. In addition, the Career 

Center helps spouses learn about and navigate DOD’s other spouse 

employment programs. For example, spouses interested in MyCAA may 

speak with a counselor at the Career Center to help them develop their 

education plan, which is a requirement for receiving MyCAA benefits. 

Until recently, the Career Center was part of DOD’s Military OneSource, 

which provides information and referral to services for servicemembers 

and their families. Information has not been available on the amount 

spent on the Career Center because expenditure data for the center was

not separated from Military OneSource expenditures. DOD has recently 

separated the Career Center from Military OneSource.

In addition to the three SECO programs, spouses can also receive 

employment assistance from the long-standing programs operated at 

military service installations.18 The services’ programs also provide 

counseling to spouses and information about DOD’s spouse employment 

programs, but they differ from the Career Center in that they are provided 

in-person. For example, some of the activities offered for spouses at 

installations we visited in the Washington, D.C. area include an annual 

spouse job fair, a dress-for-success workshop with stylists at a 

department store, and a spouse support group with guest speakers, such 

as MSEP representatives.19 DOD officials explained that they created the 

Career Center to supplement the services’ programs, which may not have 

been fully meeting the needs of all spouses. The military services’ 

 

17According to DOD data, the Career Center received about 185,000 phone calls in fiscal 

year 2011.

18Spouses may also use services provided by the Transition Assistance Program (TAP), a 

partnership among DOD, the Department of Labor, and the Department of Veterans 

Affairs. TAP helps servicemembers transitioning out of the military with employment and 

relocation assistance and with assistance obtaining a variety of other benefits and 

services, such as veterans benefits, educational opportunities, health and life insurance, 

and financial planning. DOD officials said that although TAP services may be available to 

spouses, few spouses use TAP for employment assistance. A DOD official stated that the 

TAP program is currently being revised and plans to have three new tracks available for 

spouses in late 2012.

19The services’ employment programs are generally part of broader budgets, such as 

base operations and support, and funds spent on employment assistance for military 

spouses are not separately tracked.
 

Page 10 GAO-13-60 Military Spouse Employment Programs

programs are available only during business hours and may not be 

accessible to spouses who do not live on a military installation. In 

contrast, any military spouse may access the Career Center, 24 hours a 

day, 7 days a week. Furthermore, DOD officials noted that installations 

vary in the level of employment assistance they provide to spouses. For 

example, some of the services’ employment assistance programs are 

staffed by generalists who provide other types of counseling as well, and 

many of the services’ programs also serve other members of the military 

community, such as servicemembers and retirees. In contrast, the Career 

Center is staffed by counselors with specialized knowledge in 

employment services, and the counselors are focused specifically on 

assisting military spouses. With the Career Center, spouses who do not 

feel that the employment assistance programs at their local installation 

are meeting their needs have an alternative resource they can turn to.

The creation of the new SECO programs has had many benefits, according 

to advocacy group representatives, program staff, and spouses we 

interviewed. Officials and spouses agreed that these programs help 

address unique challenges faced by military spouses, such as frequent 

relocation to installations with varying services offered. For example, a 

spouse we spoke with explained how she spoke with a Career Center 

counselor to identify job opportunities in a rural installation and applied for 

MyCAA tuition assistance upon relocating to another installation. 

Additionally, one official with a spouse group praised MSEP for connecting 

spouses with private sector job opportunities throughout the nation.

However, with the establishment of the new SECO programs overlaid on 

the services’ existing programs, program staff, spouses, and advocacy 

groups we spoke with expressed some confusion and noted gaps in 

coordination:

• A representative from an advocacy group noted that the information 

spouses are provided about the various employment programs is 

inconsistent across installations and websites, and the names and 

terminology used for the programs also varies. This may make it 

confusing for spouses as they move and seek assistance in different 

locations.

• The advocacy group representatives also said that while the various 

programs refer spouses to other programs, spouses may not be 

provided information to help them make the best use of other 

programs. For example, they said that staff at the services’ 

employment assistance programs may refer spouses to the Career 
 

Page 11 GAO-13-60 Military Spouse Employment Programs

Center website but do not inform them about the breadth of services 

that Career Center counselors can provide. As a result, some 

spouses may not be aware of the various types of assistance that the 

Career Center can offer. With regard to MSEP, the representatives 

said that counselors at the Career Center and the services’ 

employment assistance programs refer spouses to the MSEP web 

portal but do not provide them with further guidance on how they can 

effectively use the portal to obtain a job with an MSEP partner.

• An advocacy group representative and program managers we spoke 

with indicated that the various programs’ websites may not be easy to 

navigate or find. For example, a representative from an advocacy 

group noted that the Career Center website has good information, but 

it is difficult for spouses to find it within the Military OneSource 

website. A program manager at one installation said that some 

spouses have had difficulty finding the MyCAA website. Another 

program manager said that the Career Center website does not have 

links to local installations’ employment assistance programs.

Additionally, during our site visits and interviews, we heard about some 

issues that have been created by having two different programs—the 

Career Center and the military services’ employment assistance 

programs—that appear to offer some similar services. Specifically, we 

heard the following accounts about how often spouses are referred to the 

Career Center, instances where spouses have been referred back and 

forth between the two programs, and potential duplication of efforts:

• A program manager at one installation noted that she would not refer 

spouses to the Career Center unless she was unable to handle the 

workload.

• A program manager at one installation said that she refers spouses to 

the Career Center when she believes the type or level of services they 

need would be better provided by Career Center counselors. 

However, she said, in several cases, those spouses have been 

referred back to her.

• At a different installation, a program manager said that she 

encourages her staff to refer spouses to the Career Center because 

of the quality of services offered. However, she also noted that 

because the Career Center provides some of the same services as 

her office (e.g., counseling and help with resume writing and 

interviewing skills), there is a potential duplication of effort. She said 

that it would be acceptable to her if her office no longer provided 
 

Page 12 GAO-13-60 Military Spouse Employment Programs

those employment services that the Career Center can provide and 

instead, focused on delivering other services spouses need.

DOD has taken some steps to help spouses navigate among the various 

programs. Its guidance for its family readiness programs, which the 

military services’ employment assistance programs are one part of, 

directs military services’ staff to assess a spouse’s need for SECO 

services and identify opportunities to refer spouses to other services that 

support their well-being. In addition, DOD officials said they recently 

established a policy to ensure that MyCAA participants were referred to 

the other SECO programs. Beginning in early 2012, spouses who want to 

enroll in MyCAA are expected to speak with a counselor at the Career 

Center first and also register for MSEP.

However, DOD does not currently have guidance describing its overall 

strategy and how its various programs should coordinate to help spouses 

obtain employment. According to DOD officials, DOD is in the process of 

developing such guidance to provide direction on SECO programs and 

address coordination and referral among the various programs. To do so, 

DOD has convened an advisory group that includes representatives from 

all of the services. As DOD develops its new guidance, our prior work on 

enhancing and sustaining collaboration may be helpful. We identified the 

following eight practices that can help sustain collaboration across 

organizational boundaries:20

1. Define and articulate a common outcome.

2. Establish mutually reinforcing or joint strategies.

3. Identify and address needs by leveraging resources.

4. Agree on roles and responsibilities.

5. Establish compatible policies, procedures, and other means to 

operate across agency boundaries.

 

20GAO, Results-Oriented Government: Practices That Can Help Enhance and Sustain 

Collaboration among Federal Agencies, GAO-06-15 (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 21, 2005). 

See also our report on interagency collaborative mechanisms, Managing for Results: Key 

Considerations for Implementing Interagency Collaborative Mechanisms, GAO-12-1022 

(Washington, D.C.: Sept. 27, 2012). 
 

Page 13 GAO-13-60 Military Spouse Employment Programs

6. Develop mechanisms to monitor, evaluate, and report on results.

7. Reinforce agency accountability for collaborative efforts through 

agency plans and reports.

8. Reinforce individual accountability for collaborative efforts through 

performance management systems.

While all of these are relevant to DOD’s spouse employment programs, 

two are particularly relevant because of the issues raised in our site visits 

and interviews: (1) agreeing on roles and responsibilities, and (2) 

establishing compatible policies, procedures, and other means to operate 

across agency boundaries. The concerns about duplication of effort and 

referrals back and forth between the Career Center and the military 

services’ programs may indicate that the roles and responsibilities of the 

two programs may not be sufficiently clear or defined. Similarly, the 

inconsistencies and gaps in collaboration may indicate a need to 

establish compatible policies, procedures, or other operational means, for 

example, common names and terminology for the programs and new 

procedures or mechanisms to ensure spouses are informed about the 

programs that can help them.

DOD is not yet able to measure the overall effectiveness of its spouse 

employment programs in achieving the goals of reducing unemployment 

among military spouses and the wage gap with civilian spouses. 

Additionally, DOD only has limited information on the performance of its 

individual programs.21 DOD is aware of these limitations and is taking 

steps to assess the programs’ effectiveness and develop a more robust 

performance monitoring system.

 

21Measuring performance has important distinctions from assessing effectiveness. 

Performance measurement is the ongoing monitoring and reporting of program 

accomplishments, particularly progress toward pre-established goals. Performance 

measures may address the type or level of program activities conducted (process), the 

direct products or services delivered by a program (outputs), or the results of those 

products and services (outcomes). However, when a program’s desired outcomes are 

known to be influenced by factors outside the program, measures of program outcomes 

alone may provide limited information on a program’s effectiveness. In these cases, an 

impact evaluation can be used to assess a program’s effectiveness. Impact evaluations 

attempt to isolate the program’s impact from other factors, but they can be expensive and 

difficult to conduct. 

DOD Currently 

Cannot Measure the 

Effectiveness of Its 

Programs, but Efforts 

Are Underway
 

Page 14 GAO-13-60 Military Spouse Employment Programs

To assess effectiveness of the three SECO programs, DOD is planning 

on contracting with a research organization to conduct a long-term 

evaluation. DOD officials would like the research organization to examine 

whether the programs have affected spouses’ unemployment rates and 

their wage gap with civilian spouses, as well as determine whether the 

programs have had an effect on servicemembers’ retention in the military 

and the families’ financial well-being. It is too soon to tell whether this 

evaluation will be able to measure these possible outcomes and also 

demonstrate whether the outcomes can be attributed to DOD’s spouse 

employment programs.22 DOD officials anticipate establishing the contract 

for this evaluation in fiscal year 2013.

In the meantime, DOD is conducting limited monitoring of the 

performance of two of its spouse employment programs. First, DOD 

monitors the number of spouses hired by employers participating in 

MSEP. Second, DOD tracks the percentage of courses funded by MyCAA 

tuition assistance that spouses complete with a passing grade.

DOD’s performance monitoring is limited for several reasons. First, DOD 

has no performance measures for the Career Center. Second, DOD’s 

data on the MSEP program are of questionable reliability because they 

derive from an informal, nonstandardized process. Specifically, the data 

on the number of spouses hired by employers participating in MSEP are 

collected primarily by Army program managers through informal contacts 

with spouses. These informal methods create the potential that DOD is 

not obtaining reliable data. For example, if program managers vary in the 

questions they ask spouses, information spouses provide may be 

inconsistent. Moreover, by using data primarily from Army program 

managers, DOD is missing information from spouses of servicemembers 

in the Air Force, Marine Corps, and Navy who are working at MSEP 

employers.23 Finally, DOD’s performance measure for MyCAA—showing 

 

22 For example, changes in military spouses’ unemployment rates over time are likely to 

be affected by labor market conditions in the United States. An impact evaluation would 

attempt to isolate the effect of the program from the effects of labor market conditions and 

other external factors by comparing program outcomes with an estimate of what would 

have happened in the absence of the program. 

23Aside from the Army data, DOD also includes spouses hired at exchanges and 

commissaries at DOD installations when reporting data on the number of spouses hired 

by employers participating in MSEP. DOD exchanges and commissaries are employer 

partners in MSEP.
 

Page 15 GAO-13-60 Military Spouse Employment Programs

that more than 80 percent of courses funded with MyCAA tuition 

assistance were completed with passing grades in fiscal year 2011—may 

be a useful interim measure for monitoring how the funds are being used. 

However, this does not show whether the MyCAA funds are helping 

spouses obtain employment or increase their earnings.24

DOD recognizes the need to improve its performance monitoring for its 

spouse employment programs and is taking steps to improve the data it 

collects on its individual programs:

• For the Career Center, DOD is planning to ask the contractor who 

runs the call center to follow up with spouses who use the center’s 

services and ask them about their employment situation. DOD officials 

said that these follow-ups could be used to obtain information on 

employment outcomes of spouses who used the center, as well as 

those who used MyCAA and MSEP programs, since the call center 

also provides counseling to spouses using those programs.25

• For MSEP, DOD is planning to implement new procedures to collect 

data from participating employers on the number of military spouses 

they hire. Spouses hired by an MSEP employer will self-identify to the 

employer that they are a military spouse. Employers will then report to 

DOD the number of spouses they hired through a reporting 

mechanism in the MSEP web portal.

• For MyCAA, DOD has established methods to obtain data on when 

spouses complete their planned programs of study and the 

educational degrees they have obtained due to MyCAA funding. 

 

24With regard to the military services’ employment assistance programs, each of the 

services tracks data on their programs, but they track different data. Generally speaking, 

they compile data on the number of services provided over a period of time, for example, 

the number of group trainings or workshops, one-on-one consultations, or job fairs 

provided, though the specific items they track vary across the military services. The 

Army’s program is the only one that collects outcomes data on whether their clients 

obtained a job, but as discussed above, it does so using informal and non-standardized 

procedures, so reliability of the data cannot be assured. 

25DOD officials said that the contractor who operates the call center has been conducting 

follow-up with military spouses who called to obtain their feedback on how they were 

served. To obtain military spouses’ feedback on the other SECO programs, DOD has an 

email address specifically for spouses to provide their feedback on MyCAA, and DOD 

officials said that spouses can send messages with their feedback through the MSEP web 

portal. 
 

Page 16 GAO-13-60 Military Spouse Employment Programs

DOD’s web-based portal for MyCAA now asks spouses to report to 

DOD when they are taking a class that will complete their planned 

program of study. It also asks schools to report when a spouse has 

obtained a certificate or degree.

DOD has also identified four measures that it would like to track, including 

three broader measures related to the SECO programs’ goals and one 

measure for MyCAA: (1) spouses’ unemployment rate, (2) the wage gap 

between military and civilian spouses, (3) spouses’ ability to maintain their 

jobs or similar jobs after relocation, and (4) the change in earnings among 

MyCAA participants. DOD has been conducting a survey of spouses 

biennially to obtain information on military spouses’ unemployment rate, 

and it will be fielding a new survey in late 2012 to obtain updated 

information. DOD does not yet have processes for collecting data on a 

regular basis on the three other measures it is considering.

As DOD continues to develop its performance monitoring system, our 

previous work on developing effective performance measures may be 

helpful.26 Specifically, we identified nine key attributes of successful 

performance measures (see table 1).27 No set of performance measures 

is perfect, and a performance measure that lacks a key attribute may still 

provide useful information. However, these attributes can help identify 

areas for further refinement. For example, one of the attributes calls for 

covering core program activities. As we noted above, DOD does not have 

a performance measure for the Career Center, and thus its measures do 

not cover all of its core program activities intended to support military 

spouse employment. DOD’s performance measure for MSEP has also 

been lacking the attribute of reliability, since DOD has not had a 

standardized process for collecting the data. Reliability refers to whether 

 

26Federal agencies are required to measure their performance under the Government 

Performance and Results Act, as amended. Specifically, the act requires federal agencies 

to have a performance plan that covers each program activity set forth in their budget, to 

have objective, quantifiable, and measurable performance goals that are aligned with an 

agency’s goals and missions, to establish a balanced set of performance indicators to 

measure progress toward those goals, and to include a description of how the agency 

ensures the accuracy and reliability of its performance data. 31 U.S.C. § 1115. For further 

information on requirements under the Government Performance and Results Act, see 

GAO, Managing for Results: Opportunities for Congress to Address Government 

Performance Issues, GAO-12-215R (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 9, 2011).

27GAO, Tax Administration: IRS Needs to Further Refine Its Tax Filing Season 

Performance Measures, GAO-03-143 (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 22, 2002).
 

Page 17 GAO-13-60 Military Spouse Employment Programs

standard procedures for collecting data or calculating results can be 

applied to the performance measures so that they would likely produce 

the same results if applied repeatedly to the same situation. Another key 

attribute that may be relevant is limiting overlap. There is potential for 

overlap if DOD has performance measures that track employment 

outcomes for each of the three SECO programs, but military spouses 

often use more than one program. For example, if many spouses who 

use MSEP also use the Career Center, a measure on the number of 

spouses who obtained employment through MSEP could overlap with a 

measure to track spouses’ employment through the Career Center, since 

the two measures would capture employment attainment for many of the 

same individuals.

Table 1: Key Attributes of Successful Performance Measures

Attribute Definition

Balance Balance exists when a suite of measures ensures that an 

organization’s various priorities are covered.

Clarity Measure is clearly stated and the name and definition are 

consistent with the methodology used to calculate it.

Core program activities Measures cover the activities than an entity is expected to 

perform to support the intent of the program.

Governmentwide 

priorities

Each measure should cover a priority such as quality, 

timeliness, and cost of service.

Limited overlap Measure should provide new information beyond that 

provided by other measures.

Linkage Measure is aligned with division and agencywide goals and 

mission and clearly communicated throughout the 

organization.

Measurable target Measure has a numerical goal.

Objectivity Measure is reasonably free from significant bias or 

manipulation.

Reliability Measure produces the same result under similar conditions.

Source: GAO.

Because DOD has multiple employment programs that military spouses 

may use, our work on practices for enhancing and sustaining 

collaboration, which we discussed above, may offer some helpful insights 

as DOD refines its performance monitoring system.28 Specifically, we 

 

28GAO-06-15 and GAO-12-1022. 
 

Page 18 GAO-13-60 Military Spouse Employment Programs

noted that developing mechanisms for monitoring, evaluating, and 

reporting on results of collaborative efforts can help agencies identify 

areas for improvement. We also stated that agencies can use their 

strategic and annual performance plans as tools to drive collaboration 

and establish complementary goals and strategies for achieving results.

The federal government has two hiring mechanisms targeted specifically 

to military spouses seeking federal jobs. The first mechanism—a 

noncompetitive hiring authority for military spouses—is available to any 

federal agency. The second—DOD’s Military Spouse Preference (MSP) 

program, which allows DOD to give military spouses preference in hiring 

for civilian or nonappropriated fund positions—applies only to DOD. 

These two mechanisms can increase a military spouse’s chances of 

obtaining federal employment, but they do not guarantee that spouses will 

obtain the jobs they apply for. DOD provides general information to 

military spouses on these mechanisms through the Career Center’s 

website and the military services’ employment assistance programs. 

Civilian personnel offices at local installations may provide more detailed 

information and also inform spouses about how to apply for DOD and 

other federal job openings.

The noncompetitive authority, which became effective in late fiscal year 

2009,29 allows any federal agency the option of hiring qualified military 

spouses into the competitive service without going through the 

competitive examination process.30 In other words, this authority allows 

eligible military spouses to be considered separately from other 

candidates, meaning that military spouses do not have to compete 

directly against other candidates as is the case under the competitive 

examination process. To be considered for a position under this authority, 

military spouses applying for federal jobs indicate in their applications that 

they would like to be considered and include documentation verifying their 

eligibility. According to OPM, the purpose of the noncompetitive authority 

 

29This authority was provided by Executive Order 13473 (2008). It became effective on 

September 11, 2009.

30The competitive examination process is the traditional method for hiring into federal 

service positions. The federal hiring process typically involves notifying the public that the 

government will accept applications for a job, screening applications against minimum 

qualification standards, and assessing applicants’ relative competencies or knowledge, 

skills, and abilities against job-related criteria to identify the most qualified applicants. 

Two Hiring 

Mechanisms Can 

Provide Advantages 

to Military Spouses 

Seeking Federal 

Employment

Noncompetitive Authority
 

Page 19 GAO-13-60 Military Spouse Employment Programs

is to minimize disruptions in military families due to permanent 

relocations, disability, and deaths resulting from active duty service. 

Agencies can use the noncompetitive authority to hire: (1) spouses who 

are relocating because of their servicemember’s orders for up to 2 years 

after the relocation, (2) widows or widowers of servicemembers killed 

during active duty, and (3) spouses of active duty servicemembers who 

retired or separated from the military with a 100 percent disability.

The extent to which use of this authority results in employment of a 

military spouse depends on a variety of factors. First, federal hiring 

managers have the discretion whether to consider candidates under this 

authority for a job vacancy. Second, if the hiring manager chooses to 

consider candidates under this authority, the hiring manager is not 

required to select a qualified military spouse, and the manager can 

ultimately decide to select a qualified candidate other than a military 

spouse. This authority allows for eligible military spouses to be 

considered and selected for federal jobs, but it does not provide a hiring 

preference over other qualified applicants. Federal agencies may also 

consider using noncompetitive appointment authorities or hiring 

mechanisms for other populations, such as those for veterans, people 

with disabilities, and federal employees who lost their jobs due to 

downsizing or restructuring.

OPM officials told us that they conduct oversight of this authority as part 

of their general oversight of federal agencies’ human capital systems. 

OPM officials said that thus far, they have found no irregularities in 

agencies’ use of this hiring mechanism. OPM officials also said they have 

provided technical assistance and briefings to federal agencies and 

stakeholders on this authority and other ways to support military families, 

such as using authorities for hiring veterans.

Federal agencies hired about 2,000 military spouses using this hiring 

authority in the first 2 years of implementation, with more hired in the 

second year (about 1,200 in fiscal year 2011 and about 800 in fiscal year 

2010). The approximately 1,200 military spouses hired in fiscal year 2011 

represented about 0.5 percent of all federal hires that year.31 For context, 

spouses of active duty servicemembers represented 0.4 percent of the 

 

31 These numbers do not reflect military spouses who may have obtained federal jobs 

without using the noncompetitive authority. Data on the number of military spouses hired 

under the noncompetitive authority are from OPM’s Central Personnel Data File. 
 

Page 20 GAO-13-60 Military Spouse Employment Programs

working-age population in 2010.32 DOD has been the primary user of this 

authority, hiring 94 percent of all military spouses hired under the 

authority. OPM officials said this was likely due to military spouses’ 

greater familiarity with DOD, and that DOD is more likely than other 

agencies to have job openings where military spouses are located.

DOD’s Military Spouse Preference (MSP) program provides military 

spouses priority in selection for DOD positions. The MSP includes two 

hiring mechanisms—one for spouses seeking DOD civilian positions, and 

one for spouses seeking DOD nonappropriated fund positions. With 

regard to the mechanism for DOD civilian positions, the MSP provides 

hiring preference to qualified spouses for DOD positions if the spouse is 

among persons determined to be best qualified for the position.33 The 

other mechanism provides military spouses with preference in hiring for 

nonappropriated fund positions below a certain pay level.34

Nonappropriated fund positions within DOD include those paid for by 

funds generated from services provided, such as at exchanges, 

recreation programs, and child care centers on military installations. To 

be considered for a position under the MSP program, military spouses 

must register for MSP, provide supporting documentation, and identify 

which types of jobs they would be willing or able to perform based on their 

backgrounds and geographic location. When a spouse’s qualifications 

and desired job characteristics match a job opening, the spouse must 

submit his or her application through MSP.

As with the noncompetitive authority, the extent to which this authority is 

used depends on several factors. MSP only applies to civilian jobs at 

DOD that a hiring manager chooses to fill through a competitive process,

which generally means that the hiring manager is to consider more than 

one candidate for the position and select the best-qualified candidate 

 

32 This estimate is obtained from DOD’s data on the number of military spouses, 

according to its report Demographics 2010: Profile of the Military Community, as well as 

data from the 2010 decennial census on the size of the U.S. working-age population (ages 

18-64). We present 2010 data in order to use population data from the decennial census. 

3310 USC § 1874(b).

34Exec. Order No. 12,568 (1986). The 1986 executive order gives preference in hiring in 

DOD nonappropriated fund activities to spouses of servicemembers stationed in the same 

geographical area as the activity. MSP may be used for nonappropriated fund positions in 

pay band level NF-3 and below (equivalent to GS-8 positions and below) and positions 

paid at hourly rates. 

Military Spouse Preference 

Program
 

Page 21 GAO-13-60 Military Spouse Employment Programs

based on job-related criteria.35 The characteristics of the job opening 

(location, type, level) must also match the criteria indicated by the spouse 

when he or she registered for MSP.36 In addition, the spouse must be 

among the best qualified applicants for the job. Furthermore, according to 

DOD officials, the agency also uses hiring preferences for other 

populations who may have a higher priority than the spouse, such as 

DOD employees whose positions were recently eliminated. If the 

registered MSP spouse is determined to be among the best qualified 

applicants, and if there are no other best qualified candidates with a 

higher priority preference, the hiring manager must select the military 

spouse for the job.37 For nonappropriated fund jobs, the MSP program 

only applies to jobs below a certain pay level. A DOD official said that 

these positions generally have relatively high turnover rates, so spouses 

often do not need to use the MSP to obtain the job.

DOD’s civilian personnel office oversees the MSP and other preference 

programs, and officials said that they have found no irregularities in MSP 

use. DOD’s civilian personnel office also tracks the number of spouses 

who register for MSP and are placed into jobs on a monthly basis. While 

these are useful measures of program activity, DOD officials said that 

they do not provide information on whether the agency is making 

sufficient use of MSP. Examining sufficiency of MSP use would require a 

study that takes into account the many complex factors that affect MSP, 

including how many vacancies DOD had at spouses’ locations, how many 

vacancies matched the types of jobs spouses identified in their 

registration as being qualified for, how the qualifications of spouses who 

applied compared to those of other candidates, and whether other 

candidates for the position were eligible for special hiring mechanisms as 

 

35MSP does not apply if the hiring manager chooses to fill the job from a list of 

noncompetitive candidates. Additionally, MSP does not apply in certain situations, such as 

when MSP would violate requirements regarding veteran’s preference or adversely affect 

programs for the achievement of minority and gender equality, programs for persons with 

disabilities, or programs for the affirmative employment of veterans. Defense Civilian 

Personnel Advisory Service, Department of Defense Priority Placement Program (PPP) 

Handbook (Arlington, VA: July 2011).

36In discussions with DOD officials about whether they may use MSP to fill mission-critical 

positions, DOD officials said that DOD would want to hire spouses for mission-critical 

positions (e.g., electronics engineer, contract specialist), but whether they can do so 

depends upon the spouses’ qualifications. 

37If more than one spouse is among the best qualified, the hiring manager can select 

among the spouses.
 

Page 22 GAO-13-60 Military Spouse Employment Programs

well, such as noncompetitive appointments. DOD officials indicated that 

such an analysis would be challenging to conduct, and DOD has not 

attempted a comprehensive study. Nonetheless, DOD officials we spoke

with felt that the MSP program had helped a large number of spouses 

obtain jobs.

Over the 10-year period of fiscal years 2002 to 2011, a total of about 

12,500 military spouses were placed in civil service jobs through the 

MSP, according to DOD’s data. This number includes both new hires and 

conversions of DOD employees.

38 The numbers have fluctuated from 

year to year in this time period, from a low of 890 to a high of 1,722. DOD 

officials said that the fluctuations likely correspond with overall DOD hiring 

levels. With regard to nonappropriated fund jobs, DOD does not 

consistently track the number of spouses hired through the MSP, but 

overall, about 26,000 military spouses were employed by DOD in 

nonappropriated fund jobs as of June 2012. This represented 19 percent 

of all employees in these jobs.

While DOD is at an early stage of implementing its new spouse 

employment programs, it has an opportunity to ensure that a wellcoordinated structure is in place to deliver employment services to 

spouses, and that its system for monitoring performance is well-designed. 

Specifically, through its advisory group, DOD has the potential to include 

program stakeholders in a meaningful effort to support spouses and 

military families, while also ensuring effective delivery of services and 

addressing potential areas of duplication. As its advisory group moves 

forward with developing guidance on spouse employment programs, 

DOD has an opportunity to incorporate practices that can enhance and 

sustain coordination, including agreeing on roles and responsibilities for 

both SECO and the military services to provide employment assistance to 

spouses. Without guidance that incorporates key collaboration practices, 

DOD may miss opportunities to ensure all spouses consistently receive 

high quality employment assistance from SECO and the military services 

and can navigate smoothly from program to program, while avoiding 

duplication of efforts.

 

38DOD was not able to provide us with breakdowns of their MSP numbers into new hires 

and conversions. 

Conclusions
 

Page 23 GAO-13-60 Military Spouse Employment Programs

With regard to its performance monitoring, DOD has taken steps in the 

right direction by exploring options to collect outcome data and planning 

for a long-term evaluation. However, as DOD works to identify the 

performance measures it will use to conduct ongoing monitoring of its 

programs and report its progress to policymakers, DOD can benefit by 

considering attributes of successful performance measures. These 

include ensuring that it uses reliable data and that its performance 

measures enable it to monitor all of its key program activities and their 

planned outcomes. Without integrating successful elements of 

performance measurement into its evaluation efforts, DOD runs the risk 

that it will not collect sufficient and accurate information to determine if 

DOD funds are being used in the most effective way to help military 

spouses obtain employment.

To enhance collaboration among the various entities involved in 

delivering employment services to military spouses and to better monitor 

the effectiveness of these services, we recommend that the Secretary of 

Defense take the following actions:

• consider incorporating key practices to sustain and enhance 

collaboration when developing and finalizing its spouse employment 

guidance, such as agreeing on roles and responsibilities and 

developing compatible policies and procedures.

• consider incorporating key attributes of successful performance 

measures when developing and finalizing performance measures, 

such as ensuring reliability of the data used in the measures and 

covering key program activities.

Recommendations for 

Executive Action
 

Page 24 GAO-13-60 Military Spouse Employment Programs

We provided a draft of this report to the Secretary of Defense and the 

Director of OPM for review and comment. In DOD’s written comments, 

which are reproduced in appendix III, DOD partially concurred with our 

recommendations. DOD said that in general, our report correctly 

addresses the issues concerning collaboration and performance measure 

development. DOD also provided technical comments, which we 

incorporated as appropriate. OPM had no comments. 

DOD partially concurred with our recommendation to consider 

incorporating key collaboration practices to sustain and enhance 

collaboration when developing and finalizing its spouse employment 

guidance. While DOD said it looked forward to incorporating collaboration 

practices as the SECO program matures, DOD stated that it has already 

taken initial action in this area. For example, DOD cited the advisory 

group it created, as well as partnerships developed with various 

organizations. Our report recognizes DOD’s efforts. However, these initial 

actions do not directly address the particular area highlighted in our 

recommendation—developing and finalizing guidance for its spouse 

employment programs. As we state in our report, the programs under the 

SECO initiative are new and there are some gaps in coordination. Thus, 

we continue to believe that incorporating key collaboration practices into 

the guidance that DOD is developing, such as agreeing on roles and 

responsibilities, would be beneficial. This could help ensure that the 

various entities involved in DOD’s multiple spouse employment programs

work cohesively and avoid duplicating efforts while helping military 

spouses seamlessly navigate across the programs.

DOD also partially concurred with our recommendation to consider 

incorporating key attributes of successful performance measures when 

developing and finalizing its performance measures. DOD said that it 

looks forward to improving performance measurement but that it has 

already taken steps to incorporate key attributes of successful 

performance measures. For example, DOD said it is developing

employment data collection for military spouses directly from MSEP 

partners and anticipates completion by winter of 2013. We recognize 

DOD’s efforts to collect additional data. However, because DOD is in the 

early stages of this process, we continue to believe that it can benefit 

from incorporating attributes of successful performance measures as it 

further develops its performance monitoring system. 

Agency Comments 

and Our Evaluation
 

Page 25 GAO-13-60 Military Spouse Employment Programs

We are sending copies of this report to the appropriate congressional 

committees, the Secretary of Defense, the Director of OPM, and other 

interested parties. The report is also available at no charge on the GAO 

website at www.gao.gov. 

If you or your staff members have any questions about this report, please 

contact me at (202) 512-7215 or at sherrilla@gao.gov. Contact points for 

our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found 

on the last page of this report. Staff members who made key contributions 

in this report are listed in appendix IV. 

Andrew Sherrill

Director

Education, Workforce,

and Income Security
 

Page 26 GAO-13-60 Military Spouse Employment Programs

List of Committees

The Honorable Carl Levin

Chairman

The Honorable John McCain

Ranking Member

Committee on Armed Services

United States Senate

The Honorable Daniel Inouye

Chairman

The Honorable Thad Cochran

Ranking Member

Subcommittee on Defense

Committee on Appropriations

United States Senate

The Honorable Howard P. “Buck” McKeon

Chairman

The Honorable Adam Smith

Ranking Member

Committee on Armed Services

House of Representatives

The Honorable C. W. Bill Young

Chairman

The Honorable Norman D. Dicks

Ranking Member

Subcommittee on Defense

Committee on Appropriations

House of Representatives
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 27 GAO-13-60 Military Spouse Employment Programs

We addressed the following research objectives in this study:

1. What efforts has DOD recently made to help military spouses prepare 

for and obtain employment?

2. What steps has DOD taken to assess the effectiveness of these 

programs?

3. What hiring mechanisms exist to help military spouses obtain federal 

jobs?

We identified DOD’s recent efforts to help military spouses prepare for 

and obtain employment by interviewing DOD officials and reviewing 

literature and documents, including DOD websites, reports, program 

descriptions, strategic planning documents, and guidance. We focused on 

identifying programs that would be a primary resource for military 

spouses to enhance their job skills and increase their employability, 

identify job opportunities, and/or help them obtain employment. We did 

not include in our review programs that may have an employment focus 

but generally did not serve spouses of active duty servicemembers, nor 

did we include programs that may target military spouses but had a 

primary focus other than employment. We developed a preliminary list of 

programs that included the three programs under DOD’s Spouse 

Education and Career Opportunities (SECO) initiative, as well as the 

employment assistance programs that the military services have long 

operated. We shared our list with DOD officials, who agreed with our 

assessment that these are the primary programs that provide 

employment services to spouses. Our first objective is focused primarily 

on the three new SECO programs, but we note that spouses can also use 

the military services’ employment assistance programs, and we discuss 

coordination across the SECO and military services’ programs.

As we identified the programs to examine, we conducted further 

interviews with officials involved in each of DOD’s spouse employment 

programs, both at DOD headquarters and with each of the military 

services (Air Force, Army, Marine Corps, and Navy). We requested more 

detailed information, such as on the programs’ purposes, budgets, 

services they provide, and coordination. In examining coordination among 

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology 

Objective 1: Identifying 

DOD Efforts
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 28 GAO-13-60 Military Spouse Employment Programs

the programs, we consulted GAO’s prior work that identified practices that 

can help federal agencies enhance and sustain collaboration.1

To obtain additional perspectives, we interviewed two advocacy groups 

who support military families, and we visited employment assistance 

programs at three military installations in the Washington-D.C. area. 

These installations are: Fort Meade (Army and Navy programs), Joint 

Base Andrews (Air Force), and Henderson Hall (Marine Corps). During 

our visits to these installations, we spoke with local program officials, and 

we spoke to military spouses in three of the four services. The information 

we obtained from these installations is not generalizable.

To identify the steps DOD has taken to assess the effectiveness of its 

spouse employment programs, we interviewed DOD officials to obtain 

information on how DOD is currently measuring effectiveness, as well as 

its plans to conduct evaluations or collect data on performance. We also 

reviewed documents DOD provided, including internal and external 

reports, strategic planning documents, and descriptions of existing and 

potential performance measures. In assessing DOD’s performance 

measures, we consulted with GAO’s prior work that identified attributes of 

successful performance measures and described requirements for 

reporting on performance under the Government Performance and 

Results Act, as amended.2 We also assessed the reliability of the data 

used for DOD’s performance measures by interviewing officials 

knowledgeable about the data and reviewing relevant documents. Based 

on our work, we determined that the data used for the performance 

measure on the Military Spouse Employment Program are of 

questionable reliability, and we discuss this in our report.

We identified the hiring mechanisms intended to help military spouses 

obtain federal employment by interviewing officials at OPM and DOD and 

reviewing relevant federal laws, regulations, executive orders, and 

 

1

GAO, Results-Oriented Government: Practices That Can Help Enhance and Sustain 

Collaboration among Federal Agencies, GAO-06-15 (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 21, 2005). 

2

GAO, Tax Administration: IRS Needs to Further Refine Its Tax Filing Season 

Performance Measures, GAO-03-143 (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 22, 2002); Managing for 

Results: Opportunities for Congress to Address Government Performance Issues, 

GAO-12-215R (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 9, 2011).

Objective 2: Identifying 

DOD’s Steps to Assess 

Effectiveness

Objective 3: Identifying 

Federal Hiring 

Mechanisms
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 29 GAO-13-60 Military Spouse Employment Programs

guidance. Our interviews and the documents also provided information on 

the processes for how these mechanisms can be used.

To obtain data on the number of spouses hired through one of these 

mechanisms, the noncompetitive authority, we analyzed data from OPM’s 

Central Personnel Data File (CPDF), a database of federal employees.3

We present data for fiscal years 2010 and 2011, since the authority was 

implemented in late fiscal year 2009. We reviewed the reliability of the 

data by interviewing OPM officials, conducting electronic testing, and 

reviewing relevant documents. We determined that the data were 

sufficiently reliable for our purposes. The information we present from our 

analysis of the CPDF is on the number of individuals hired under the 

noncompetitive authority for military spouses. It does not include military 

spouses hired by federal agencies without using this authority, and as 

such does not represent the total number of military spouses hired by 

federal agencies. Data are not available in the CPDF to identify the total 

number of military spouses hired by federal agencies.

On the other hiring mechanism that we examined, the Military Spouse 

Preference (MSP) program, DOD’s civilian personnel office provided us 

with data on the number of spouses placed into civil service positions, 

including both hires and conversions. We assessed the reliability of this 

data by reviewing relevant documents and interviewing DOD officials on 

the processes through which the data are input and validated. We 

determined that the data were sufficiently reliable for our purposes. With 

regard to the number of spouses hired into nonappropriated fund positions 

using the MSP, DOD officials noted that such data are not collected in a 

consistent manner by the military services’ nonappropriated fund offices so 

we do not present these data. DOD’s Defense Manpower Data Center 

provided us with data on the number of spouses in nonappropriated fund 

positions overall, and we present this information in our report for context.

 

3

The CPDF contains individual records for most federal employees and is the primary 

governmentwide source for information on federal employees. The CPDF includes all 

executive branch agencies except the U.S. Postal Service, the Postal Rate Commission, 

the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Security 

Agency, the Defense Imagery and Mapping Agency, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the 

White House, the Office of the Vice President, the Board of Governors of the Federal 

Reserve System, and the Defense Intelligence Agency. Judicial branch employees and 

most legislative branch employees are also excluded from the CPDF.
Appendix II: DOD’s Spending on Military 

Spouse Employment Programs

Page 30 GAO-13-60 Military Spouse Employment Programs

Table 2 provides information on DOD’s expenditures on the two military 

spouse employment programs for which data were available—MyCAA 

and MSEP. Data were not available on how much was spent on the 

Career Center because the center was included in DOD’s broader 

contract for Military OneSource. According to a DOD official, DOD intends 

to have an overall SECO budget that encompasses the three spouse 

employment programs for fiscal year 2013. Data were also unavailable on 

how much DOD spends on spouse employment activities on local 

installations because the resources used for military services’ 

employment programs are embedded in broader budget categories, such 

as base operations and support.

Table 2: Expenditures on Selected DOD Employment Programs for Military 

Spouses, Fiscal Years 2009 to 2011

(In millions)

Fiscal Year

Program 2009 2010 2011

Military Spouse Career Advancement Accounts (MyCAA) 

Programa $64.8 $186.8 $54.8

Military Spouse Employment Partnership (MSEP)/Army 

Spouse Employment Partnershipb $0.7 $0.7 $1.2

Source: GAO analysis of DOD documents.

a

MyCAA expenditures include tuition assistance funds and the web-based portal. 

b

The Army Spouse Employment Partnership transitioned to MSEP in fiscal year 2011. 

Appendix II: DOD’s Spending on Military 

Spouse Employment Programs
Appendix III: Comments from the Department 

of Defense

Page 31 GAO-13-60 Military Spouse Employment Programs

Appendix III: Comments from the 

Department of Defense
Appendix III: Comments from the Department 

of Defense

Page 32 GAO-13-60 Military Spouse Employment Programs
Appendix III: Comments from the Department 

of Defense

Page 33 GAO-13-60 Military Spouse Employment Programs
Appendix III: Comments from the Department 

of Defense

Page 34 GAO-13-60 Military Spouse Employment Programs
Appendix IV: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments

Page 35 GAO-13-60 Military Spouse Employment Programs

Andrew Sherrill, (202) 512-7215, sherrilla@gao.gov

In addition to the contact named above, Lori Rectanus (Assistant 

Director), Keira Dembowski, and Yunsian Tai made significant 

contributions to this report. Also contributing to this report were James 

Bennett, David Chrisinger, Brenda Farrell, Cynthia Grant, Joel Green, 

Yvonne Jones, Kirsten Lauber, Kathy Leslie, Benjamin Licht, Trina Lewis, 

James Rebbe, Sarah Veale, and Gregory Wilmoth.

Appendix IV: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments 

GAO Contact

Staff 

Acknowledgments

(131155)
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