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Who is a Veteran? Evaluating DoD 

Data for Use in the Census Business 

Demographics Program

Any opinions and conclusions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not reflect the views of the U.S. Census 

Bureau. The Census Bureau has reviewed this data product for unauthorized disclosure of confidential information and has 

approved the disclosure avoidance practices applied to this release (Approval ID:CBDRB-FY24-CES014-001) 

Adji Fatou Diagne and Adela Luque

U.S. Census Bureau
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Annual Total Business Demographics Program

Synchronization of employers & nonemployers

Nonemployer Statistics by 

Demographics (NES-D)

Administrative Records (AR) -

based

Annual Business Survey 

(ABS)

(Employers)

Survey-based

Statistics

Sex, ethnicity, race, and veteran status
Misalignment in Veteran Status

• Conceptual misalignment between the Annual Business Survey veteran or 

military personnel concept and VA’s veteran concept/data used in NES-D

• The ABS questionnaire

• “Has the business owner ever served in any branch of the U.S. Armed Forces, 

including the Coast Guard, the National Guard, or Reserve component of any service 

branch?”

• The VA USVETS data

• Cover military personnel who have served in the active military, naval air service and 

who was discharged or released under conditions other than dishonorable

• Excludes: actively serving, National Guard, and Reserve individuals not previously 

active

• VA’s veteran concept is narrower than ABS’

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This Project

• Evaluate administrative data from the Department of Defense for 

potential use in the NES-D program

• Goal: figure out if these data can bring us closer to capturing the survey based 

“veteran” concept

• DEERS data used to answer several questions related to the 

usefulness of the data in identifying military personnel

• Can the DEERS data be used as a complement or substitute to the USVETS 

data?

• What does coverage look like for the DEERS data?

• What can we say about agreement between DEERS and ABS respondent 

data? 

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Data: Defense Enrollment Eligibility 

Reporting System (DEERS) 

• Database contains information for each Uniformed Service member 

(Active Duty, retired, or a member of a Reserve Component), USsponsored foreign military, DoD and Uniformed Services civilians, 

other personnel as directed by the DoD (including the patient 

population serviced through the Military Health Services System), and 

their eligible family members

• Registration is required for TRICARE eligibility and enrollment

• Data is not cumulative

• Includes birth and death info

• Can identify personnel given a reference year

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Data: Summary of characteristics

DEERS

• Coverage

o Individuals affiliated with DoD as of the cut-off date 

of file, including the Army, Coast Guard, Air Force, 

Marine Corps, and Navy

o Active Duty

o National Guard

o Reserve

o Retired (20+Years and eligible for retired pay)

o Reserve Retired (20+ Years) but not yet eligible for 

retired pay

• Delivery

o Two deliveries per year (Fall and Spring, except 

2018)

o Lag from reference year is less than 1 year

• Excludes

o Individuals who were active duty in the past and are 

not currently employed by DoD, not in receipt of a 

current Common Access ID card from DoD, or not in 

current receipt of pay or benefits from the DoD

USVETS

• Coverage

o Individuals who have served in the active military, naval air service and who was discharged or 

released under conditions other than dishonorable

• Delivery

o Data based on fiscal year of the reference year

o Lag from reference year is 1.5 year

• Excludes

o National Guard unless they served on active duty 

under Title 10 USC

o Active Duty

o Reserve unless they served on active duty under 

Title 10 USC

• Additional Gaps

o Data as good as original data sources

o Service members not enrolled/use 

benefits/healthier/younger

o Reserve and National Guard members that are 

activated under Title 10 but are not 

recorded/updated in DEERS as active duty

o The very old (fire that caused damage to files)

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Tasks

1) Outline the DEERS data to understand its universe and coverage

2) Merge to USVETS to answer questions including:

• Who’s in DEERS only? Why?

• Do the results align with our expectations?

• Is DEERS a complement or substitute to USVETS?

3) Assess agreement between ABS respondent data and Admin 

Records (DEERS & USVETS)

4) Examine additional coverage using 2018 DEERS and NES-D 

estimates

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2018 DEERS Universe

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Notes: Sponsors, calendar year 2018. N = 4,507,250. 

 Retired: served 20+ years and eligible for retired pay 

Source: Department of Defense’s Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System (DEERS), 2018

Personnel Category Service Branch
Military personnel in DEERS/USVETS

DEERS

1,020,000

USVETS

15,220,000

Putting these numbers into 

perspective

• According to the ACS, there 

were about 18.0 million veterans 

in 2018

• In fiscal year 2018, DoD reported 

1.3 million Active Duty 

personnel

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3,405,000

Notes: Data linked with Protected Identification Key (PIK)

Calendar year 2018 DEERS and VA data used for merge data contain living military personnel and vets 

only

Sources: Department of Defense’s Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System (DEERS) and Department of 

Veteran Affairs’ United States Veterans Eligibility Trends and Statistics (USVETS), 2018 

. 
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Personnel found in both DEERS & USVETS data

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Note: Calendar year 2018 DEERS and VA data used for merge data contain living military 

personnel and vets only. N = 3,405,000.

Sources: Department of Defense’s Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System (DEERS) and 

Department of Veteran Affairs’ United States Veterans Eligibility Trends and Statistics 

(USVETS), 2018 

Personnel Category
Personnel in DEERS not found in USVETS

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Note: Calendar year 2018 DEERS and VA data used for merge data contain living military 

personnel and vets only

Source: Department of Defense’s Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System (DEERS), 2018

Personnel Category Service Branch
Assessing Agreement between Survey 

Response and Military Administrative 

Records (DEERS + VA)

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Note: agreement rates are calculated using 2018 respondent data and calendar year 2018 

DEERS and VA data. Owner 1 owns 100% of the firm.

Sources: Respondent data from the Annual Business Survey, Department of Defense DEERS and 

Department of Veterans Affairs USVETS administrative data, 2018 

ABS Veteran Response

Count

Percent NO YES

32,500 900

NO 99.12 32.61

300 1,800

in DEERS or VA YES 0.88 67.39

Total 32,800 2,700

100 100
Additional military coverage of 2018 NES-D 

from DEERS Records

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Sources: NES-D 2018 and Department of Defense’s Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System (DEERS), 2018

Personnel Category Count

Active Duty 8,400 

National Guard 2,200 

Retired 6,400 

Reserve 4,100 

Other 350 

Total 21,450 
Summary

• VA USVETS data remain the best for identifying business owner 

veterans

• DoD DEERS data is a good complement to USVETS

1) Allows us to capture military currently serving

2) Provide information on National Guard members, Reservists, Retired, 

National Guard Reservists

3) Fills in the gap for those older and healthier retirees that do not use VA 

benefits and thus are not in the USVETS data

• DEERS can also serve us well when performing quality assessments of 

employer-owned military responses

• These data can also be leveraged in the imputation process for 

veterans with missing military responses

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Next Steps

• Cases with disagreement results are those in/out of Active Duty

• Aim to increase coverage and agreement rates by creating longitudinal 

panel of DoD military personnel

• Capture those who have ever served but are not in VA data or in DoD crosssection

• Better coverage the longer the panel

• Re-calculate agreement rates using more recent data: PIKs from 2021 

ABS and 2018-20 VA-DoD panel

• Sensitivity analysis with smaller employers w/ fewer owners

• Using ABS info, drill-down on demogs/other characteristics of 

disagreement cell (e.g., vets in ABS but not in AR VA or DoD)

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My Contact Information

Adji Fatou Diagne

Economist

Survey and Economic Research Group

Center for Economic Studies

U.S. Census Bureau

Office: 301-763-0627

adji.f.diagne@census.gov

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