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Best Cities for Veterans

veterans from the marines army air force and navy

Veterans starting the post-service phase of their lives face a unique set of opportunities and challenges.veterans from the marines army air force and navy

On the one hand, the post-9/11 G.I. Bill can help with getting a college education.  On the other hand, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that veterans between the ages of 25 and 34 have unemployment rates nearly 4 points higher than comparable civilians.

Working with USAA Insurance and Military.com, we decided to shed some light on this issue by determining the Best U.S. Cities for Veterans.

Out of 379 major U.S. metro areas, here’s the top 10:

  1. Pittsburgh, PA
  2. Phoenix, AZ
  3. Dallas, TX
  4. Cleveland, OH
  5. Atlanta, GA
  6. Warren, MI
  7. Ann Arbor, MI
  8. Cincinnati, OH
  9. Columbus, OH
  10. St. Louis, MO

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Talking about El Paso

I recently had a great phone conference with members of the Paso del Norte Group, which “promotes the economic, social and cultural vitality of the El Paso region.”

I spoke with Richard Behrenhausen (Gen. US Army, ret.) and David Buchmueller (COO of the PDN Group), who spoke with enthusiasm about the many assets of their city, and even discussed the regions challenges and misconceptions.

For example, most people are aware of El Paso’s large Mexican sister to the south – Cuidad Juarez.  Wracked by drug wars and corruption, Juarez recorded over 3,000 homicides in 2010, which is easily the highest murder rate in the world.

Yet just across the Rio Grande river, El Paso remains a world apart.  El Paso has the lowest violent crime rate in the United States for cities over 500,000 population, with only five homicides in 2010.

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“Military Retirement” study garners major media coverage

Our Best Cities for Military Retirement and Second Careers study is a making a big splash in the media.  The team at Fleishman-Hillard PR orchestrated a great campaign for our USAA-sponsored study.

A big front-page above-the-fold feature in USA Today:  Job-Seeking Veterans.

Forbes.com featured a two-page story and a slide show, and the American Morning show on CNN spent over four minutes discussing our results.

Articles on news sites across the country:

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Military Retirement – Second Careers

Coinciding with Veteran’s Day, we just completed an interesting study about the best places in the U.S. for military retirees to start a second career.  Since most veterans retire from service in their 30’s or 40’s, they have plenty of time to start a new professional chapter in their lives.

source: allamericanpatriots.com

So what are the best places to enter the civilian job sector?  To help us find out, we partnered with USAA (a financial services provider) and Military.com (the largest military and veteran membership organization).  We looked at factors such as affordability, unemployment rate, prevalence of military skill related jobs, and number of veteran-owned businesses.  But we didn’t stop there.

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