On Mar 5, 2007, at 6:14 PM, Dennis Claxton wrote:
> Doug wrote:
>
>
>> the image of the poverty draft is badly overwrought.
>>
>> Doug
>
>
> As far as I can tell the hardest evidence for the argument is based
> on recruiting practices. American Friends Service Committee has a
> lot of info on that. For example, they have a map of the New York
> area with recruiting stations correlated with poverty level:
>
>
> http://www.afsc.org/nymetro/specialprojects/recruitmentmaps.htm
But that doesn't really tell us where the recruits come from, just where the offices are.
Heritage did a study in 2005 <http://www.heritage.org/Research/
NationalSecurity/cda05-08.cfm>, which unlike a lot of their stuff,
seems serious and honest. Here's the summary:
> In summary, we found that, on average, 1999 recruits were more
> highly educated than the equivalent general population, more rural
> and less urban in origin, and of similar income status. We did not
> find evidence of minority racial exploitation (by race or by race-
> weighted ZIP code areas). We did find evidence of a 'Southern
> military tradition' in that some states, notably in the South and
> West, provide a much higher proportion of enlisted troops by
> population.
>
> The household income of recruits generally matches the income
> distribution of the American population. There are slightly higher
> proportions of recruits from the middle class and slightly lower
> proportions from low-income brackets. However, the proportion of
> high-income recruits rose to a disproportionately high level after
> the war on terrorism began, as did the proportion of highly edu
> cated enlistees. All of the demographic evidence that we analyzed
> contradicts the pro-draft case.
The military itself reports, based on 1999 records <http://
www.dod.mil/prhome/poprep98/html/chapter_7.html>:
> Many of the assertions about the class composition of the military
> have been based on impressions and anecdotes rather than on
> empirical data. Analysis of Vietnam era veterans indicated that
> individuals of high socioeconomic status comprised about half the
> proportion of draftees compared to their representation in the
> overall population.(4) Three systematic analyses of the
> socioeconomic composition of accessions during the volunteer period
> suggest that little has changed with the All Volunteer Force. All
> found that members of the military tended to come from backgrounds
> that were somewhat lower in socioeconomic status than the U.S.
> average, but that the differences between the military and the
> comparison groups were relatively modest.(5) These results have
> been confirmed in recent editions of this report, which portray a
> socioeconomic composition of enlisted accessions similar to the
> population as a whole, but with the top quartile of the population
> underrepresented.(6) While the socioeconomic status of recruits is
> slightly lower than the general population, today's recruits have
> higher levels of education, measured aptitudes, and reading skills
> than their civilian counterparts.
Doug