At 20 years old, I was a military spouse working at a part-time retail job with limited hours.
While I didn’t have caregiving responsibilities at the time, I saw how difficult it was for the military spouses who worked alongside me to juggle work and caring for their kids and elderly parents. Some had switched to part-time hours to be able to care for family members. Others ended up leaving their jobs altogether to provide care, with no promise of re-employment.
Like so many military spouses, my former coworkers did not have the right to take leave from work when they needed it with the peace of mind that their jobs would be there when they returned. But a new bill would help more military spouses access the job-protected leave they need to support themselves, their families and military readiness.
Family and Medical Leave is Critical for Military Spouses
Service members have unpredictable and demanding schedules that can leave their spouses to shoulder the majority of their household’s caregiving responsibilities. Service members’ work days are long, and overnight field exercises can last from a couple days to a couple weeks. Formal training periods also take service members away from home for long periods of time. Many active duty Army soldiers spend one month every few years training at the Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) for combat readiness. Other branches of the military have readiness and pre-deployment training that last from one to four weeks. These long periods often leave military spouses as the only person available to take care of a sick child or parent.
Military spouses are also the first in line to provide care to rehabilitate injured soldiers; high injury rates make their caregiving critical. Physically intensive training for service members results in 50 percent of them seeking medical care for an injury each year. And because military families receive orders to move far from their immediate and extended family, military spouses may find themselves without a network of support from those who could assist with the care of an injured service member.
Because of these care responsibilities, it is critical that military spouses be able to take time away from work without fear of losing their jobs. These men and women need stable employment to help contribute towards their household income. Without the right to return to their jobs after leave, military spouses risk lost income and greater economic insecurity for their families.
FMLA Requirements Create A Barrier to Job-Protected Leave for Military Spouses
Under the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), eligible employees are entitled to take 12 weeks of job-protected, unpaid leave for the birth, adoption or foster placement of a new child; for their own serious health condition; to care for a family member with a serious health condition or for certain needs related to a family member’s foreign deployment. The law also provides eligible employees with 26 weeks of leave to care for a servicemember with a serious illness or injury.
Eligibility for FMLA leave is restricted to employees who meet certain requirements. This includes requirements that an employee must work for at least one year and 1,250 hours over the last 12 months for their current employer.
Frequent Relocations Make it Difficult for Military Spouses to Meet FMLA Tenure Requirement
Military families move about four times more than civilian families. In 2021, 81 percent of military spouses moved to a new duty station at least once during their spouse’s four-year active duty contract. Of those who moved, 28 percent had already experienced a move within that previous year; the average time since a military spouse’s last Permanent Change of Station (PCS) move was two years. Overall, service members can move duty stations 8 to-12 times within a 20-year career.
These frequent moves due to PCS orders require military spouses to constantly start new jobs. With each move and new employer, the clock to qualify for FMLA restarts, making it difficult to meet the law’s one-year tenure requirement for eligibility.
Under-Employment for Military Spouses Makes Meeting the FMLA Hours Requirements Difficult
Despite barriers, military spouses want to work. In 2023, the labor participation rate for military spouses was 61 percent, very close to the 63 percent rate for civilian spouses . However, military spouses struggle to find full-time employment. According to a 2024 Government Accountability Office report, about one third of military spouses work part-time – and those interviewed for the report said that they worked part time because of childcare responsibilities and frequent moves.
This part-time work can make meeting the law’s hours requirement difficult. A Department of Labor (DOL) survey found that 16 percent of people who were ineligible for FMLA and did not take leave reported they were ineligible because they worked part time.
The Lack of FMLA Access Impacts Military Readiness
The inability to take job-protected leave can increase a military spouse’s likelihood of being unemployed. When spouses are dissatisfied with their own employment or income, service members are less likely to re-enlist, depriving the military of their expertise. A spouse’s employment has other indirect impacts on military readiness. For example, a 2024 DOD study found 43 percent of enlisted service members with an unemployed spouse experienced food insecurity in the prior year, undermining military readiness. This food insecurity undermines service members’ access to nutritious food to meet physical requirements and prevent injuries.
A New Bipartisan Bill Would Expand FMLA Eligibility for Military Spouses
Recent legislation could help lower barriers to FMLA leave for military spouses, 92 percent of whom are women. On July 10th, Representative Marilyn Strickland (D-WA-10) and Representative Don Bacon (R-NE-2) introduced H.R. 4351, the Ensuring Access to FMLA Leave for Military Spouses Act, a bill to reduce the job tenure requirement from one year to 90 days and eliminate the hours worked requirement for military spouses.
By expanding FMLA eligibility for military spouses, this bill would support hundreds of thousands of military spouses that sacrifice their economic independence, stability and career continuity so that their active duty service member can fulfill the oath to duty.
