During the transition from active-duty service to civilian life, military personnel face a number of challenges, including finding employment, obtaining needed mental and physical health care services, securing housing, and applying for civilian social service programs, such as SNAP or disability assistance.  Since the 1990s, the Department of Defense has offered the Transition Assistance Program (TAP) to all service members prior to their separation from the military.  The TAP provides advice on job searches, interviews, and preparing a resume, as well as information about veteran’s benefits, unemployment benefits, and developing a civilian mindset.  Recently the program has been redesigned and a new program, Transition GPS (Goals, Progress, Success) is being phased in during 2014.  In order to provide a comparison for future evaluations of the new program, we use data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) to document the strengths and weaknesses of the original TAP.

Using nationally representative data from the August Veteran’s Supplement to the CPS from 2003 to 2011, we document participation in and satisfaction with the TAP overall and by branch of service.  Given the rich evaluative information contained in the Veteran’s Supplement, we can identify specific services that were found to be effective, barriers to success identified by program participants, and suggestions for improvement.  For program participants, advice on job training and veteran’s benefits were cited as the most useful parts of the program.  Offering the program six-months or more prior to discharge, including presentations by employers and human-resources managers, and developing a website were among the most common suggestions for program improvement.

The TAP program was in effect for over twenty years and was offered to hundreds of thousands of military personnel who were poised to separate from the military.  While much energy has been spent evaluating the effectiveness of TANF, job training, and other social service programs, Department of Defense programs do not often receive the same attention.  As a consequence, results of our study will be of interest to all those interested in the veteran affairs, including those currently implementing the Transition GPS program, as well as general social welfare researchers.