A Workforce Hidden In Plain Sight
By Monique Street
Care Work and Economic Empowerment Organizer
“You knew what you were signing up for.”
Military spouses hear that phrase often. It frames instability as a personal choice rather than a structural challenge.
I did not fully understand the professional tradeoffs that would accompany military life. Like many new graduates, I believed opportunity would follow hard work. I earned my degree and married my college sweetheart.
Together, we stepped into military life after his commission, assuming that education, credentials, and effort would shape my career trajectory alongside his. That belief quickly met the reality of military life.
With every permanent change of station (PCS), I felt like I was starting over. I moved between full- and part-time roles, with stretches of unemployment—even after earning advanced credentials and a master’s degree in financial planning.
Titles didn’t build on one another. Pay didn’t steadily increase; it often decreased significantly, especially when moving to lower cost-of-living areas. Each move required me to reintroduce myself professionally and prove my value all over again.
The cumulative effect wasn’t just financial; it also challenged my confidence and professional identity.
Eventually, I secured work serving military families in roles that felt both meaningful and strategically aligned with our lifestyle. I believed I had found a path that could move with us.
What I discovered instead was that my ability to remain employed had little to do with the type of employer, my performance, or my qualifications. Retention depended more on whether we were relocating to the right place at the right time.
In most cases, roles didn’t transfer at all.
At times, employers offered what they viewed as workable concessions. I could remain classified as an employee, although I would still lose my paycheck and benefits.
Technically retained does not mean financially sustained.
A military spouse whose role changes, or whose compensation is affected by relocation, may still qualify for unemployment benefits — even while being considered retained for reporting purposes.
This distinction matters because retention on paper is often how success is tracked or defined, yet it doesn’t reflect the real economic impact on the family.
Moreover, being employed is not the same as building a career. Jobs can be easily disrupted by relocation. Careers are meant to build over time.
One moment brought that tension into focus. While still working full-time, I applied for childcare at our next installation, hoping my job would move with us.
When it didn’t, I took an available part-time role rather than step away from the workforce entirely.
We were eventually offered a childcare spot at the new location, only to be informed that my change in employment status made our family ineligible for installation-based childcare.
Childcare required full-time employment. Full-time employment required reliable childcare. Without one, the other was out of reach. Off-post options were limited, and private, in-home childcare became the only accessible alternative.
The cost absorbed nearly all of my income, exposing a structural inefficiency unique to military life: with each relocation, both employment and childcare access reset simultaneously, making it extraordinarily difficult to retain either in a way that supports career continuity.
Many pursue advanced degrees and professional certifications, or launch small businesses to maintain momentum.
During transition periods, unpaid labor is often framed as a way to stay engaged and build experience. The challenge is that spouses are left to carry the burden of convincing employers that this experience counts.
The military has designed a system where service members’ careers compound over time. Spouses are informally asked to reset in response.
As a financial professional, I know how powerful compounding is. It rewards consistency, time, and uninterrupted growth.
Compounding builds wealth. Repeated restarts erode it.
Military families are expected to live in both realities at once.
We rarely pause to consider what repeated resets cost families over time. Understanding this cost requires considering who military families actually are.
Roughly nine out of ten military spouses are women, according to the Department of Defense’s most recent demographic report, and the racial and ethnic diversity of military families has grown steadily each year. Across the broader workforce, structural disparities for these groups are well documented. Women working full-time earn about 81 cents for every dollar paid to men — for Black women, that figure drops to around 66 cents compared to white, non-Hispanic men.
In 2025, Black women experienced the largest employment losses of any demographic group. According to the Economic Policy Institute, their employment rate fell nearly three times faster than any other group. Moreover, the DOD reports that the unemployment rate for military spouses has hovered around 21% since 2015.
The structural barriers military spouses face do not exist in isolation. For many, they stack on top of disparities that already exist.
It’s worth noting that the military itself has taken steps to address pay inequity through its publicly available pay charts — a level of compensation transparency that the civilian labor market has largely failed to replicate. Military spouses often navigate industries where pay remains opaque, is negotiated privately, and is rarely audited for equity.
Each employment reset can carry the compounded weight of navigating multiple, statistically‑proven barriers that affect economic opportunity and professional progress.
The real question isn’t whether we knew what we were signing up for — it’s whether leaders are willing to confront the layered barriers that keep military spouses like me from building the careers we are qualified for and deserve.
It’s whether they will create real structures and opportunities that translate our education and experience into meaningful pay, professional growth, and true advancement — not a lifetime cycle of unpaid labor and underpaid roles.
For families like mine, that reality magnifies every stalled promotion, every pay reduction, every forced restart. We are not asking for sympathy; we are asking for equity — and for leadership who is willing to acknowledge that without structural change, the cost of service continues to compound on those of us building careers in its shadow.
Learn more about Monique and her role at Secure Families Initiative
https://securefamiliesinitiative.org/sfi-team/monique-street/