Active-duty Army Recruits by Neighborhood Income

The graph below shows the representation of active-duty Army recruits for 2005, 2007, and 2008 according to the median household income of their ZIP code. (Data are not available for the individual recruit's household income.)

Each income bracket, or decile, on the x-axis represents 10 percent of the youth population, ages 18-24. For example, the first decile indicates that ten percent of all youth ages 18-24 live in neighborhoods with a median household income between $0 and $30,839. The bars show the percentage of recruits who come from those neighborhoods.

In the first decile, the percentage of recruits is less than 10 percent, thus youth from that income bracket are under-represented in the pool of new recruits in the active-duty Army. Similarly, youth in the upper two deciles (top 20% of income) are also under-represented among new Army recruits, and the percentage of recruits coming from such neighborhoods has continued to fall since 2005. In other words youth from low- to middle-median income neighborhoods are over-represented among new Army recruits.

Note that the comparable median household income for the US was $50,170, and lies in the 6^th decile. For a family of four, the 200% poverty guidelines 2008 was $42,400. This guideline is used to determine eligibility for some government assistance programs.

Notes: Median household income estimates by ZIP code are drawn from 2008 estimates from Claritas, Inc. (These data were purchased by NPP.) Army data were obtained from the Army through a FOIA request submitted by NPP. Recruits from Puerto Rico and U.S. territories are not included. The numbers indicating the decile ranges are from 2008.