Angles of Support for Military Service Members
- Patriotism
- Pride
- Women
- Kids
- Family
- Marriage
- Advancing Freedom
- Defending America
The American Public & Their Military
- There are 325,700,000 Americans.
- 72% of Americans (234,504,000) have “a great deal/quite a lot” of confidence in their military. This is higher than for teachers, doctors, scientist, engineers, clergy, journalist, and business executives.
- 79% of Americans (257,303,000) trust the military to act in the public’s interest. Americans have given the military the highest confidence rating of any institution in American society for nearly two decades.
Americans perceive the military as effective, well-run and skilled
Many are confident in the military because of its important role
Americans see military leaders as courageous and professional
Total Core Military Family: 6,248,500
- Military personnel: 3,500,000
- 24.2% have children 12 to 18 years of age: 848,000
- 54.3% of Active Duty military members are married: 1,900,500
Close Friends of the Core Military Family: 53,737,100
- Americans have 8.6 close friends, not including their relatives
- The Core Military Family thus has 53,737,100 close friends.
- That translates to 16% of the U.S. population.
Total Close Relatives of Military Personnel
- 14% of Americans (45,598,000) have a close relative who has served in the U.S. military in any capacity since the Sept. 11th terrorist attacks, including a parent, child, sibling, spouse, son-in-law, or daughter-in-law.
- 7% of Americans (22,799,000) have a close relative in the military who has served in either Afghanistan or Iraq since the Sept. 11th terrorist attacks, including a parent, child, sibling, spouse, son-in-law, or daughter-in-law
Overview of Military Personnel
The total number of military personnel is 3,500,000+. This includes DoD Active Duty military personnel (1,301,443); DHS’s Active Duty Coast Guard members (39,090); DoD Ready Reserve and DHS Coast Guard Reserve members (1,101,353); members of the Retired Reserve (216,370) and Standby Reserve (9,899); and DoD Appropriated and Non-Appropriated Funds civilian personnel (865,019). DoD’s Active Duty and DHS’s Coast Guard Active Duty members comprise the largest portion of the military force (37.9%), followed by Ready Reserve members (31.2%) and DoD civilian personnel (24.5%).
Gender
- 15% of DoD Active Duty force are women.
- 84.5 percent of the DoD Active Duty force are men.
Age
- 28.5 years is the average age of the Active Duty force.
- The average enlisted member was just over age 27.
- 50.3% of Active Duty enlisted personnel are 25 years of age or younger.
- 21.7% are 26 to 30 years old.
- 14% are 31 to 35 years old.
- The average military officer is 34.5 years old
- 25.3% of Active Duty officers are 41 years of age or older
- 22.4% are 26 to 30 years old
- 20.8% are 31 to 35 years old
- 17.7% are 36 to 40 years
- 13.8% are 25 years or younger.
Education
- 83.8% DOD active-duty officers have at least a bachelor’s degree, including 42% who hold an advanced degree. Military officers have considerably higher levels of educational attainment, on average, than enlisted personnel and U.S. adults. They are four times as likely as average adults ages 18 to 44 to have completed a postgraduate degree.
- 91.6% of enlisted personnel have completed high school and/or some college experience but less than a Bachelor’s degree, as compared to 60% of all U.S. adults ages 18 to 44.
- 7% of enlisted personnel have a bachelor’s degree, compared with 19% of all adults ages 18 to 44.
Marital Status
- 54.3% of Active Duty military members are married
- 51.1% of enlisted members are married
- 69.6% of officers are married.
- 56.0% of Active Duty males are married.
- 45.3% of Active Duty females are married.
- 6.4 percent of Active Duty members are in dual-military marriages.
Military Spouses
- 20.1% are 25 years of age or younger
- 23.5% are 26 to 30 years of age
- 21.3% are 31 to 35 years of age
- 14.8% are 36 to 40 years of age.
- 20.3% are 41 years of age or older
Military Children
- 2.0 average children in the military family, which matches the civilian sector.
- 37.5% are birth to 5
- 31.3% are 6 to 11 years of age
- 24.2% are 12 to 18 years of age
Children and Marital Status
- 43.1% are single with no children
- 34.9% are married with children
- 15.6% are married without children
- 6.3% percent are single with children
- Overall, 41.2 percent of military personnel have children
Race / Ethnicity
- 68.7% report themselves as White.
- 17.3% report themselves as Black or African American.
- 4.2% report themselves as Asian
- 1.3% report themselves as American Indian or Alaska Native
- 1.1% report themselves as Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander
- 3.2% of Active Duty members report themselves as Multi-racial.
Internet Availability
- 92.8%
Made Internet Purchases
- 66.5%
Average Salaries, Income, Etc.
- $85,858 average officer’s salary
- $42,491 average enlisted salary
- $71,348 Average family HHI, 3% higher than the U.S. family household income.
Military personnel have tremendous on-base and other benefits which gives them a significantly higher disposable income than the general population.
Notes
- Statistics have been rounded for presentation simplicity.
- Many Hispanics and Latinos claim "white" as their race even though many are actually people of color [African descent, American Native descent (North, Central and South America) or Mixed Race]