Maloney listens as Neuhaus (podium) supports his legislation
NEWBURGH – Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney (D, NY18) is calling on House members to pass his Wounded Warrior Employment Improvement Act. The bill would direct the Department of Veterans Affairs to improve job training and rehabilitation for veterans with service-connected disabilities.
Speaking at Mount Saint Mary’s College in Newburgh, Maloney said his legislation would reduce unemployment among disabled vets by requiring the VA to reduce caseloads, increase enrollment in education programs, and implement a new training program for staff working with wounded warriors.
“Right now vets that have been wounded in the service, particularly in combat, have a much higher unemployment rate than the population in general and a much higher unemployment rate than other veterans, so if you talk to the Wounded Warrior Project they will tell you the rate of unemployment among these veterans is 18 percent,” the congressman said. “That’s crazy in a country where unemployment is now five percent, and unacceptable,” he said. “Part of the problem is that our primary retraining, rehabilitation, vocational education programs are not working.”
Maloney’s legislation would seek to change that.
Orange County Executive Steven Neuhaus, a MSMC graduate and Naval Reserve
officer, supports the measuring saying the government should do all it
can to support veterans.
