Inspired to Serve The Final Report of the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service March 2020

ADVANCE MILITARY, NATIONAL, AND PUBLIC SERVICE

Service has been a part of the Nation's core values and social fabric since its founding. Together, military, national, and public service touch almost every aspect of American life and help meet the Nation's many critical needs. The men and women serving in the Armed Forces provide for the common defense of the United States; national service members use their time and talents to enhance government capacity and mitigate a myriad of challenges faced by communities; and civil servants provide critical functions for the common good. While great work is being done across the Nation in each of these areas, cultivating a culture of service in the United States requires immediate action and continued attention as well as a frank discussion of the many barriers that prevent Americans from engaging in, and experiencing the benefits of, service.

During the course of its travels and through its research, the Commission considered whether service should be mandatory or voluntary. Some Americans suggested requiring young adults to serve the Nation in some way, with a choice of military, national, or public service. They argued that such a program would help unify Americans through a common service experience, contribute to personal and professional growth, and aid in solving the Nation's problems. While the Commission believes in the value of service to individuals and the Nation, it ultimately concluded that policymakers should make every effort to promote voluntary approaches to service, reserving mandatory service as a last resort only in response to national emergencies and to ensure the common defense.

The Commission's goal is to bolster a shared ethos of service among Americans. In its research and discussion over the past two and a half years, the Commission identified three overarching and interconnected conditions that underlie an individual's participation in service: awareness, referring to their understanding and knowledge of service opportunities; aspiration, their motivation for entering service; and access, their ability to act on and realize their aspiration by entering service. Those who currently work to promote service across the Nation— military recruiters, nonprofit organizations, and human resources managers, to name only a few—engage in these key areas every day. For example, military recruitment efforts include awareness-raising advertisements, both targeted and broad; nonprofits seek to inspire individuals to serve by highlighting the benefits to self and others; and the Federal Government seeks to make best use of its available authorities to increase access to public service careers. While the influence of awareness, aspiration, and access on participation in military, national, and public service is not uniform, policies that seek to create a greater ethos of service should address each factor by capitalizing on opportunities for improvement and offering solutions to existing challenges.

Lack of awareness affects service in many ways. Military service arguably enjoys the most widespread recognition, yet Americans often have skewed or incomplete knowledge of what it means to serve in uniform, leaving them unfamiliar with the full range of career opportunities and benefits available to those who serve. National service, because it is decentralized and struggles to promote a unified brand, goes widely unrecognized. Most Americans are not familiar with the plethora of programs available, particularly through AmeriCorps. And while almost every American interacts in different ways with public servants on a regular basis, many agencies fail to actively recruit. As a result, the Government is perceived as a monolith, and the diverse opportunities it offers are not understood.

Aspiration to serve requires a baseline understanding of available opportunities and their potential benefits. Simply put, Americans unaware of national service programs cannot aspire to serve in them. Similarly, the misperception that most military service members are in combat arms reduces the likelihood that Americans will aspire to serve as military doctors, lawyers, electronic technicians, or human resources managers. And those who denigrate the value of civil servants and what they do for the security and well-being of the Nation, or wrongly assume that every Government employee is linked to political leadership or has a partisan agenda, are not only unlikely to engage in public service themselves but are also discouraging others from aspiring to public service.

Finally, the Commission recognizes that too often when Americans are aware of ways to serve the Nation and aspire to do so, they are turned away because of systemic challenges in accessing service opportunities. The inability to meet eligibility standards in the military, a demand for national service that far outstrips the supply of funded opportunities, and overly complicated and obstructive governmental hiring processes form significant barriers to service.

The recommendations highlighted below are designed to remove those barriers and improve Americans' awareness of, aspiration to, and access to service. The Commission believes that their adoption will inspire more Americans to serve and enhance pathways to and increase opportunities for service.

MILITARY SERVICE

Background

As the Commission considered ways to foster a culture of service across the country, one vital goal was to provide for the continued defense of the Nation through voluntary military service. For nearly five decades, the country has relied on the All-Volunteer Force—a group of individuals willing to raise their hands and volunteer to serve in uniform—to protect and defend American interests. However, current trends in propensity and eligibility endanger the health of the All-Volunteer Force. Civilian and military communities are increasingly isolated from each other, leading to misunderstandings as well as a continued narrowing of the population from which participants in the military are drawn. The Commission firmly believes that policy changes designed to increase awareness of the military among a wider population, to encourage greater willingness—or aspiration—to join the Armed Forces, and to improve Americans' access to service opportunities can drive the cultural shift required to counter these trends. Policy recommendations introduced in this section will enhance the Nation's ability to attract to the military the qualified personnel—including persons with specialized skills—that are critical to the long-term success of the All-Volunteer Force.

Military service offers valuable benefits not only for American society but also for individual Americans. The Commission heard countless stories from service members emphasizing what they themselves had gained, ranging from educational opportunities to career advancement to the unifying nature of military service. Military service members also develop an important set of life experiences and skills during their term of service, and in fact after leaving the military they tend to earn higher incomes than their civilian counterparts.⁴⁶ At the same time, the Commission acknowledges the challenges some current and former service members have identified, such as the pressures felt by their families and the lasting physical and mental costs of their military service. Given the need for and value of military service to the Nation, policymakers should commit to improving the experience for all military service members and veterans.

The 1970 report of the President's Commission on an All-Volunteer Armed Force, known as the "Gates Commission," laid out its recommendations on the future of the U.S. military: it argued that "a return to an All-Volunteer Force [would] strengthen our freedoms, remove an inequity now imposed on the expression of the patriotism that has never been lacking among our youth, promote the efficiency of the Armed Forces, and enhance their dignity."⁴⁷ At the same time, however, the Gates Commission expressed concern over the societal effects of a system in which the burdens of military service were not shared broadly.⁴⁸ This concern proved prescient, as today a relatively small segment of society serves in the military. Though the United States has been engaged in sustained warfare for nearly two decades, just over 0.5 percent of the U.S. population has served in the active or reserve components at any given time during that period.⁵⁰ As Secretary of Defense Robert Gates pointed out in 2010, "No major war in our history has been fought with a smaller percentage of this country's citizens in uniform full-time"—and as a result, a growing number of Americans feel that service is "something for other people to do."⁵¹ Moreover, service in the military has effectively become a family business. Veterans today are more than twice as likely as the general public to have a son or daughter who has served or is serving, demonstrating both the significance of military exposure for generating propensity and the small portion of U.S. society participating in military service.⁵²

"The civilian-military divide erodes the sense of duty that is critical to the health of our democratic republic, where the most important office is that of the citizen. While the Armed Forces retool for the future, citizens cannot be mere spectators."

 

The frequently cited civil-military divide has specific repercussions for the All-Volunteer Force and American society, especially in light of the significant increase in likelihood of enlistment when individuals engage with service members and veterans.⁵³ As former Acting Under Secretary of Defense Tony Kurta has noted, the civil-military divide "increasingly impacts our ability to effectively recruit and sustain the force, . . . threaten[ing] our ability to recruit the number of quality youth with the needed skill sets to maintain our advantage over any near-peer competitor."⁵⁴ In fact, in 2018 the Army failed to meet its recruiting goal by 6,500 even after spending an additional $200 million on bonuses, increasing the use of eligibility waivers, and lowering its goal from 80,000 to 76,500.⁵⁵

Although the general public is far more aware of opportunities for military than for other service, this broad knowledge often lacks depth and, in many cases, accuracy.⁵⁶ Many Americans do not know basic facts about the military services, do not understand the difference between officers and enlisted personnel, and have little comprehension of the range of roles and lifestyles available in military service.

A number of elements play a role in awareness, including public perceptions of military service, recruiting and marketing, media portrayals of military service, the civil-military divide, and youth education. Those who have limited interactions with service members draw their views instead from the dramatized accounts found in television ads and movies—a primary source of many Americans' misperceptions of military service.⁵⁷ The uneven concentration of military bases and recruiting stations may also contribute to lower awareness across certain geographic regions. For instance, the American South and West are home to many bases and have strong traditions of military service and also furnish a disproportionate share of enlisted military recruits, even when accounting for the regions' larger overall population.⁵⁸

The lack of familiarity and interaction, particularly in subgroups of the population whose propensity to serve in uniform is already low, is one of the key challenges to boosting that propensity and aspiration—especially since 41 percent of youth have never considered military service.⁵⁹ A 2016 Department of Defense (DoD) report on the attitudes of American youth related to the military underscored this challenge, noting that "a significant portion of the youth market is neither willing nor equipped to truly consider whether the military is in line with their aspirations."⁶⁰ C. J. Chivers, a journalist for The New York Times, observes that "we have hardwired the vast majority of our population not to worry, not even for a moment, about being called to participate in our country's wars."⁶¹

While there are many drivers of aspiration, military leaders are seriously concerned that propensity to serve in the military remains low, exhibited in only about 14 percent of youth.⁶² The role of influencers—parents, relatives, educators, and others who regularly engage with American youth—is also critical to fostering aspirations to serve; influencers who are knowledgeable about the military are more likely to encourage military service, and veterans are almost twice as likely to recommend service as nonveterans.⁶³ Those testifying before the Commission also expressed concerns over a disconnect between what younger generations value and how they perceive the military, particularly regarding the treatment of women and LGBTQ individuals.⁶⁴

Even if American youth are aware of and interested in service, in order to access military opportunities, they must be able to show that they are qualified. Today 71 percent of youth ages 17 to 24 cannot join the All-Volunteer Force without a waiver, as they fail to meet eligibility criteria in areas including physical and mental health, grooming standards, criminal records, education and aptitude, and drug use.⁶⁵ Current standards for military service often disqualify those from the lowest socioeconomic backgrounds who lack access to quality education, nutrition, and health care. In addition, larger national trends such as increasing obesity rates have an impact on eligibility.

While the recommendations below address the key barriers related to awareness, aspiration, and access, the Commission recognizes that fostering a culture of military service is ultimately "tied to the strength of commitment one feels to the Nation and its military institutions."⁶⁶ The Commission therefore urges the Nation's leaders to continue to prioritize a military that is representative of the Nation it serves and open to all citizens. The Department of Defense "must continue to work to improve the acceptance of military service by all communities as a valued career choice for their sons and daughters" and "create opportunities for all young Americans to be able to visualize themselves serving as part of the All-Volunteer Force in the United States military."⁶⁷

Findings and Recommendations

The Commission finds that the civil-military divide has contributed to many trends that prevent young adults and Americans with critical skills from considering military service. To address this phenomenon, the Commission encourages Congress and the military to improve outreach around the country, increase opportunities for youth to explore service, strengthen military recruiting and marketing, develop educational pathways for military service, and more effectively manage military personnel.

Improve Military Outreach Around the Country

The Commission found that few young Americans have more than superficial familiarity with the military, possessing only vague knowledge of the breadth of opportunities available through military service. For example, a 2016 DoD-sponsored survey determined that nearly half of young adults ages 17–35 could not name the four largest branches of the military, and only 17 percent could name all five.⁶⁸ Some of this ignorance may be explained by the physical civil-military divide. About one-third of military families live in communities on gated military bases. Due to security measures added in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, these bases have become less accessible to the American people. Opportunities for socializing— schools, child care, sports leagues, and so on—frequently occur on base, so military families' interactions with those who do not serve in the military are further limited.⁶⁹ This trend is particularly troubling because research shows that exposure to the military increases the odds of enlistment.⁷⁰ To heighten awareness, the military should work to expose all Americans to military lifestyles and opportunities, by taking steps that include increasing the ability of those not affiliated with the military to visit military environments.

Recruitment relies on a more targeted approach to deepening individuals' understanding of the military. In an austere recruiting environment, the military services seek the most cost-effective allocation of their recruiting resources. Currently, the military tends to focus on recruiting from areas where propensity to join has previously been high. In FY 2016 nearly 40 percent of all new active duty enlisted accessions came from just five States, and 68 percent came from the South and West.⁷¹

Though efficiency is important when taking on a challenging mission, repetitive recruitment—drawing consistently from high-propensity populations—also has negative effects. Specifically, it limits the potential to reach new and diverse populations and to widen the pool of future recruiting prospects. Given the trends in eligibility for and awareness of military service, the military will find it increasingly difficult to meet personnel requirements by recruiting primarily in areas of the country with high exposure to the military.

Lonnie's Story

As a young man just out of high school in a small hometown, I worked as a painter, butcher, and warehouseman, but they were not satisfying to me. One day, my mother suggested that I think about the U.S. Army. I did and spent 39 years serving our country as a soldier before working as a civilian for the Department of the Army at Fort Campbell in Kentucky. I started as an air traffic controller and after four years doing great technical work, I realized that to make it in the Army I would need a degree so I went back to school and then reentered the service. I am proud that I served as an air traffic controller, a safety officer, and a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter pilot. The Army was a great and challenging career for me, and my children experienced other cultures and what life was like outside the United States of America. If I could reset time, I would do it all again.

These proposals for expanding recruiting presence in low-propensity areas require investments in areas of the country with little exposure to the military. On field trips, school or community groups in middle and high school would travel onto military bases, escorted by a military point of contact, to meet with service members who represent a range of military occupations, thereby developing awareness of military career options.

Along with the military departments investing additional resources in low-propensity areas, National Guard and Reserve units, because of their unique geographic dispersion in communities across the country, have an opportunity to serve a primary role in engaging with local communities and schools. These proposals further empower the National Guard and Reserves to take on this mission while performing their assigned duties.

Members of Congress can also play a larger part in supporting and participating in military outreach in their districts, including assisting constituents in applying to the service academies each year.⁷³ By participating more fully in military engagement with local communities, Members of Congress can help ameliorate existing geographic and demographic disparities in military service and divides over how it is viewed.

Increase Opportunities for Youth to Explore Service

Even among youth who have been exposed to military service, aspiration to join the Armed Forces remains relatively low. Efforts to promote youth aspiration should go beyond tactics to increase exposure, striving to educate and inspire by providing more meaningful opportunities to explore the nuances of military service.

Youth cadet programs across the country provide one means of sparking a desire to serve in the military, as well as helping participants in developing skills, leadership, and confidence. There are currently a range of cadet programs that aim to educate and develop young Americans. The Civil Air Patrol exists as the official auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force, and the Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps (JROTC) is a federally administered program aimed at developing citizenship, while programs such as the Sea Cadets and Young Marines are non-Federal entities with informal connections to the military services.

Youth exposure to the military and its ability to expand other employment possibilities and educational prospects can also be increased by promoting the administration of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery Career Exploration Program (ASVAB CEP)—a version of the military's standardized aptitude test that offers career and educational guidance to students.

Another challenge confronting efforts to increase military service opportunities for youth is the high rate of ineligibility for service. According to recent estimates, fewer than one-third of 17- to 24-year-olds are currently eligible for military service without a waiver; many are disqualified for medical reasons, such as poor physical fitness and nutrition. The enlistment waiver process is designed to support a more complete review of the applicant, incorporating the views of medical professionals into a more holistic consideration of their talents and abilities. However, between half and three-quarters of disqualified applicants never apply for a waiver.⁷⁵ Moreover, the military's current eligibility requirements may exclude a segment of technically minded individuals.⁷⁶ Moving forward, DoD should take additional steps to widely disseminate information on eligibility standards and the waiver process.

Currently, there is at least one JROTC program in each of the 50 States.⁷⁷ Southeastern States and urban areas, however, have the greatest concentration of JROTC programs, while Midwestern States, Mountain States, and rural areas have the lowest.⁷⁸ By expanding the number of JROTC programs across the country, DoD would expose many more young Americans to its curriculum related to civics and citizenship. In addition, through JROTC, American youth could be exposed to a broader range of service opportunities.

The ASVAB CEP can provide enlistment and career-relevant information to students, highlighting areas of occupational interest and assessing strength in specific skills. The ASVAB CEP is provided free of charge to schools, making it accessible to a wider population of students than are likely to take commercial standardized tests. Although the test results are oriented toward increasing awareness of military jobs, many of the ASVAB CEP occupations—such as engineer, veterinarian, surgeon, and actor—also exist in the private sector, and thus the results may be applied to other careers and other kinds of service. In 2017, DoD's Office of People Analytics (OPA) collaborated with O*Net Online, CareerOneStop, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and Joint Advertising, Market Research and Studies (JAMRS) to redesign the ASVAB CEP. This redesign resulted in a career-planning resource that includes information on "college, certifications, apprenticeships, licensure programs, and the military—in one place."⁷⁹ Therefore, the ASVAB CEP may prove to be an invaluable tool for students as they make critical decisions regarding their future, such as whether to serve in the Armed Forces.

Some States, such as Maryland, have proactively passed legislation to offer students the opportunity to take the ASVAB CEP while prohibiting public schools from sharing student test results with military recruiters without permission from a parent or guardian.⁸⁰ Even though military recruiters are not guaranteed access to student results, some assert that expanding ASVAB CEP administration would lessen the civil-military divide by increasing youth exposure to military opportunities.⁸¹ Former Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Dr. David Chu recommended broadening the administration of the ASVAB CEP to expose additional students to military service.⁸²

Strengthen Military Recruiting and Marketing

Each of the military services takes its own approach to recruiting, one that reflects its specific mission and culture. To accomplish their missions, the services establish recruiting stations around the country staffed by career recruiters as well as by service members who are not career recruiters. Because their resources are limited and their end strength fluctuates, the military services often recruit most intensively in areas where they have historically been successful. This approach does little to alleviate existing challenges in recruiting a diverse population—with strong representation from men and women, from all regions of the United States, and across the socioeconomic spectrum—to military service as they draw on a limited number of groups and indeed families.

"We must . . . focus not just on improving the pool of available recruits, but on improving the organization such that that wider pool is interested in serving, the people are used to best advantage, and the organization itself is better at what it does. This means the military will have to become significantly more culturally inclusive to attract the right mix of people, more responsive to the demands of a more highly skilled workforce, and more capable of approaching challenges from multiple perspectives."

 

Military advertising also boosts propensity to serve and the likelihood of influencers to encourage service, as documented by a 2009 RAND Corporation study on the effectiveness of military advertising.⁸³ However, advertising efficiency is dependent on timely and predictable appropriations. Uncertain and late passage of annual appropriations for military recruitment advertising prevents the services from competing for desirable timeslots and results in inefficient use of taxpayer dollars.

Renewed emphasis on reaching underserved portions of the population would make the Armed Forces more reflective of the Nation, as well as increase the sustainability of the All-Volunteer Force by expanding the markets in which the military recruits. The military has already established one low-cost approach aimed at improving geographic diversity, with each of the services authorizing its own hometown recruiting programs. Hometown recruiting programs allow service members to "return to their hometowns to assist the local recruiters by sharing their military training experiences with family, friends, high school classmates, Future Soldiers, veterans, and community leaders."⁸⁴ Currently, the work of hometown recruiting is usually authorized as permissive temporary duty and occurs at no cost to the Government.

Budget instability over the past decade has limited military marketers' effectiveness in purchasing advertising. Congress' delays in passing annual appropriations have made it impossible for the military services to determine their annual funding for marketing at the start of the fiscal year, and military marketers often cannot commit resources to campaigns or make timely purchases of products in the commercial advertising cycle.⁸⁵ Sustained and long-term funding of marketing—combined with innovative new approaches for today's media environment—may enable the military services to more efficiently apply advertising resources to increase awareness and propensity to join the military.

Develop Educational Pathways for Military Service

Currently, the services access individuals with technical skillsets either by recruiting qualified specialists or by funding education and training concurrent with military service. The military already provides a broad range of educational benefits to military service members; for example, service members are entitled to tuition assistance during their term of service and can pursue higher education using the GI Bill.⁸⁶ In a 2018 RAND study, these educational benefits—particularly the GI Bill—were listed as significant motivators for enlisted personnel to join the Army.⁸⁷ Yet high school students increasingly view military service as incompatible with postsecondary education and often choose to attend college or vocational school in lieu of joining the military, even when they are interested in serving.⁸⁸ Options for countering this trend and inspiring more youth to pursue military service after their postsecondary education include encouraging more active-duty officers to teach at civilian institutions and more civilians to teach at military institutions, and increasing the number of universities that participate in exchange programs with the academies.⁸⁹

The military also faces strong competition from the private sector in attracting and retaining individuals with critical skills, particularly technical talent. Expanding avenues within the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) to specialize in information warfare offers a scalable means to increase cyber competency among officers entering the Armed Forces. The Cyber Leader Development Program (CLDP), developed at the U.S. Military Academy to prepare future cyber officers, offers an easily expandable, off-the-shelf framework.⁹⁰ Similarly, the FY 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) authorized the Secretary of Defense to establish Cyber Institutes at institutions of higher learning for the "development of foundational expertise in critical cyber operational skills for future military and civilian leaders of the Armed Forces and the Department of Defense."⁹¹ Under this initiative, the Secretary of Defense may establish Cyber Institutes at institutions of higher learning with ROTC programs, with special consideration given to the senior military colleges.⁹²

The uniformed services can develop and expand a series of pathways for providing technical education so that they can recruit and retain individuals with increasingly technical skillsets. In addition, new programs that focus on assisting current and future service members to obtain degrees, certificates, and certifications could provide much needed help in recruitment, retention, and skill development. Participants in the tuition grant program would be required to sign an enlistment contract in exchange for receipt of any tuition funding. If successful, these programs might be replicated for national and public service applicants. Military-sponsored technical credentialing programs would provide additional opportunities for civilian students, military recruits, and current military service members to gain technical education relevant to future national security needs.

As noted, programs like CLDP offer platforms for increasing the level of digital talent in the services. Individual ROTC programs not co-located with the Army Cyber Institute have so far lacked the same level of coordination and opportunity to fully implement the program. In addition, though authorized in the FY 2019 NDAA, recently approved Cyber Institutes have not yet reached their full potential.⁹³ Expanding access to and funding for these programs will assist the military services as they compete for cyber talent.

More Effectively Manage Military Personnel

Increasing participation in military service requires examining how current practices of managing talent affect both recruiting and retention. Whereas the current military personnel management system was constructed to develop standardized skills and a degree of interchangeability among service members during the Cold War, DoD will increasingly require processes for recruiting advanced specialists and for accommodating civilian career models in order to attract key talent.

"While organizations like the Defense Digital Service and the Defense Innovation Unit have done a tremendous job attracting civilians for short tours of service, this human capability cannot be solely outsourced to contractors or even civilians. We need uniformed members, both officer and enlisted, to combine their tech-nativity with the credibility and authority inherent under Title 10."

 

The FY 2019 NDAA provided extensive new authorities for the promotion of military officers to allow more flexibility in personnel management and to "enable access to critical skills."⁹⁴ Though some military leaders have been reluctant to take advantage of many of these authorities, as they often depart from the standard "up or out" model of personnel management in the military, a few programs have innovated in applying new approaches to personnel management, including the Navy's Sailor 2025 initiative.⁹⁵ In addition, several of the military services are exploring new initiatives to allow more movement between military and civilian careers.

Included in these early initiatives are alternative promotion timelines and the ability to opt out of promotion, as well as opportunities to separate from military service for academic, professional, or personal reasons and then reenter service at a rank reflecting qualifications and experience gained outside the military. Overcoming prevailing culture and longstanding military personnel practices will require support from the highest leadership and the collection of more robust data to appropriately make best use of new authorities.

The military personnel system does not currently allow for a smooth transition between components of service and the private sector, a position that inhibits retention of trained and talented service members. The military services should foster greater permeability with the private sector and take advantage of best practices and untapped talent by adopting more flexible transition mechanisms.

While the military services have begun efforts to manage digital talent, the collection of more robust performance data as well as data regarding the efficacy of the new authorities granted in the FY 2019 NDAA could help overcome institutional and cultural impediments and aid those efforts. The military bureaucracy has historically been reluctant to adopt initiatives that require significant cultural change; instead, action has had to be taken by congressional or executive branch leadership, as in the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act or the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policies. Explicit tracking can hold service leaders accountable and incentivize them to make use of new authorities that run counter to existing cultural practices. Absent such tracking, policymakers cannot determine whether new authorities were ineffective in overcoming recruiting and retention challenges or simply were not fully utilized by service leadership.

NATIONAL SERVICE

Background

Hundreds of thousands of Americans participate in national service—individual, community-led, or federally organized projects and partnerships to address the needs of the Nation. National service extends beyond volunteerism in that members commit to a term, typically greater than six months, of sustained and substantive service with an organization while earning a modest living allowance.

Each year, the Federal Government sponsors more than 300,000 national service positions through the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), the Peace Corps, and other Federal agencies. CNCS's AmeriCorps programs engage men and women in service each year at various locations across the country, including nonprofits, schools, public agencies, and community and faith-based organizations. AmeriCorps consists of three programs: State and National, Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), and National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC). Members of AmeriCorps State and National provide direct service with nonprofit and community groups. AmeriCorps VISTA members help build the capacity of organizations addressing poverty. AmeriCorps NCCC is a team-based, residential program for young adults 18 to 24, who provide short-term surge support to high-impact projects throughout the country. In addition, CNCS's Senior Corps programs tap the skills, talents, and experience of Americans ages 55 and up in three programs. The Foster Grandparent Program coordinates volunteers who serve as one-on-one tutors and mentors for at-risk youth. The Retired and Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) organizes volunteers to serve in a variety of roles in their community. The Senior Companion Program helps older Americans live with independence and dignity in their own homes. For Americans who desire to serve overseas, the Peace Corps sends volunteers to assist other countries in developing community capabilities and a better understanding of U.S. culture and values.

National service programs are built on partnerships. AmeriCorps ensures that State and local leaders play a key role in deciding where national service resources go. The National and Community Service Trust Act of 1993 explicitly created partnerships between the Federal Government, States, and nonprofit organizations to connect public and private resources to community projects. In fact, nearly 80 percent of funding for AmeriCorps State and National is overseen by Governors through appointed State service commissions. These partners generate more than $1.26 billion annually in outside resources to support national service programs.⁹⁶ These resources come from investments from some of the Nation's biggest companies, small businesses, community foundations, individual donors, and local agencies through matches or in-kind support. Such investments strengthen community impact and supplement taxpayer dollars, helping to make national service a cost-effective strategy to meet local and national needs.

Often overlooked, national service has routinely demonstrated its positive impacts and return on investment by improving the lives of those who are being served, by providing much-needed resources for local and nonprofit organizations, and by creating more united, civically engaged communities. Participants in national service can reap substantial benefits from their service, including better employment prospects, higher wages, achievement of educational goals, and improved health.⁹⁷ Communities served benefit not only from improved civic health but also from lower crime rates, improved education outcomes, and attention to unmet needs.⁹⁸ National service also works to support veterans and military families with programs designed to help in navigating benefit claim processes, provide mentoring and support when parents are deployed, and offer support services to address health and wellness needs.⁹⁹ A 2004 review of national service programs demonstrated that almost universally, the social and economic benefits significantly outweighed costs, such as the expense to Government to run the programs.¹⁰⁰ More recently, a study of the benefits and costs of national service found that the benefits outweigh the costs by billions of dollars.¹⁰¹ And though social benefits are difficult to quantify financially, it is clear that when individuals serve alongside those who may not look, worship, speak, or think like them, community ties are strengthened and civic health improves.¹⁰²

Despite the proven benefits of national service, most Americans are unaware of what national service is, unfamiliar with the opportunities to serve, and unable to anticipate how a term of service could benefit their future plans. Nearly a third of millennials state that they are unaware of existing national service opportunities, in part because of their limited exposure to participants in national service, the decentralized nature of national service marketing, and differences in branding and recruiting across programs.¹⁰³ Even Americans who want to take action in their communities might not consider national service if they are unsure and unaware of what it is, how they can contribute, and where to find opportunities.

"Expanding national service opportunities for young Americans strengthens our communities, broadens the worldview of our next generation of American leaders, and instills in our young men and women a sense of pride in themselves and their country that can only be gained through giving back."

 

While post-service awards are intended, in part, to attract new national service participants, the living allowance and other benefits received during their service term are meant to help meet members' cost-of-living expenses. The living allowance is intentionally modest, but often it is so low that members cannot sustain themselves without outside assistance during their service term, and many enroll in public assistance programs just to make ends meet. For example, in 2018— the most recent year for which data is available—the average budgeted living allowance for full-time AmeriCorps State and National members was $15,370, only 23 percent above the national poverty line for an individual.¹⁰⁶ The Commission repeatedly heard from both program managers and participants that the low stipend amount discourages those who aspire to pursue national service opportunities and hinders those without outside assistance from participating. Limitations on the post-service Segal AmeriCorps Education Award (Segal Award) also hamper its ability to act as a strong incentive to serve. While it provides AmeriCorps alumni the equivalent of a Pell Grant—$6,195 for the 2019–2020 academic year, which can be used for college tuition or to pay down student loan debt—it covers only 60 percent of the average cost of tuition at an in-state school and is subject to Federal and State taxes.¹²¹

In addition to these challenges, many are unable to act on their wish to serve because there simply are not enough positions available. The Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act authorized an expansion of AmeriCorps positions to 250,000, but Congress has not appropriated funds to enable this growth. Indeed, funding for existing programs is not secure, and as a result, demand for national service positions outstrips a stagnant supply. In this situation, national service programs and advocates devote significant time and energy to defending the status quo rather than to expanding service opportunities to more Americans.

The Commission's recommendations are designed to address national service's structural challenges in both the short and long term. In the short term, the Commission aims to increase awareness of national service and build more effective pathways to service opportunities by improving and expanding the national service system. Enhancing public awareness will not only provide more information to people looking to make a difference but will also more widely disseminate examples of service in the community, inspiring more people to serve. The Commission's recommendations are also intended to improve partnerships and collaboration through service between government agencies, private and nonprofit organizations, and their communities.

In the long term, the Commission's recommendations seek to build a service infrastructure that can support a million Americans in national service annually by 2031 through the expansion of existing service models and the creation of new models. This goal is both feasible, because enough untapped aspiration exists to fill these positions, and desirable, because a culture of service will strengthen the bonds between Americans and address unmet needs in communities across the Nation. The Commission believes that the Nation is ready and—as it has learned from conversations with experts, business leaders, service executives, national service members and alumni, and members of the public—eager for a dramatic expansion of national service opportunities across the country. The Commission envisions a future in which its recommendations have successfully cultivated a culture of service to country, and "How have you served?" has become a common refrain in America.

Findings and Recommendations

The Commission identified several critical ways in which policy change can improve awareness of, and aspiration and access to, national service. Specifically, the following policy recommendations are designed to cultivate universal awareness and improve recruitment; restructure the value, flexibility, and use of service benefits; restructure Senior Corps; expand opportunities; explore new models; increase private-sector investment; and reimagine public-sector coordination. CNCS, as an institution fundamental to coordinating and supporting national service efforts across the country, will have a direct role in executing many of these recommendations to strengthen and grow national service. The Commission is aware of deficiencies cited in recent audits of CNCS and recognizes the steps CNCS is taking to address these shortcomings, such as its ongoing efforts through its Transformation and Sustainability Plan to overhaul its grant-making system, strengthen its financial management and information technology practices, create new intergovernmental agreements to bolster its human resources and accounting functions, and improve its background check processes.¹²² The Commission believes a combination of its recommendations and the full implementation of CNCS's Transformation and Sustainability Plan will help unlock the full potential of national service in America.

Cultivate Universal Awareness and Improve Recruitment

The lack of public awareness about national service is one of the most intractable barriers to expanding and promoting greater investment in national service. It has several sources, including the absence of a formal definition of service, decentralized branding practices, and limited public exposure to national service members and opportunities to serve. The phrase "national service" has no universally accepted definition in the United States, and it can evoke disparate images, ranging from volunteerism to specific service opportunities to mandatory military obligation. In addition, AmeriCorps and Senior Corps have decentralized marketing and branding strategies that rely on nongovernmental partners with varying capabilities, while CNCS has struggled to enforce compliance with branding requirements, making it difficult for the public to differentiate the programs under its umbrella.

"One powerful way to strengthen our democracy is to ask new generations of Americans to work together through a year of national service to help solve the most persistent needs facing our communities and our country."

 

CNCS is charged with promoting national service in America, but it has yet to develop and implement a national strategy to do so—primarily because of its limited budget. One option is to establish and make full use of systemic policies that encourage or require leaders of military, national, and public service to work together on recruitment and marketing initiatives. Conversations with and testimony by military leaders revealed an appetite for crossover recruiting efforts, so long as those activities advance their mission and do not interfere with existing recruitment. Military service recruiters could benefit from greater awareness of national service opportunities across the Nation as well as more frequent interaction with national service alumni, many of whom are interested in continuing their service.¹²³ According to the Peace Corps' leadership, military service or AmeriCorps participation is frequently taken into consideration when Peace Corps applicants are evaluated. CNCS and the Peace Corps welcome the recruitment and inclusion of military veterans in service, but both have struggled to attract veterans to their programs.

A public awareness campaign will educate young people and their influencers by highlighting the ways in which people can join national service, the variety of areas on which national service focuses, and the benefits that service can provide to participants. Such a campaign will better equip these influencers to guide young adults regarding how service could benefit their lives.

Institutions of higher education can be powerful partners in creating universal awareness of and aspiration for service by encouraging service before college. Highlighting institutions of higher education that champion service and service alumni on campus will promote the idea that service is valued and may lead to more extensive support for national service by high schools. Some colleges and universities actively promote national service alumni and opportunities on campus, but more may do so if they could earn a national recognition award for their commitment to service. There is at present no strategy to reward those institutions that go above and beyond in demonstrating how they value service members. By recognizing schools that incentivize service, national service organizations can create active partnerships with institutions of higher education to promote a culture of service.

In addition to these recommendations, the Commission recognizes and supports CNCS's ongoing effort to improve common and unified AmeriCorps and Senior Corps branding requirements in order to ensure consistency across all AmeriCorps and Senior Corps promotional materials, service uniforms, and service opportunity announcements.

Restructure the Value, Flexibility, and Use of Service Benefits

National service relies on Americans who dedicate their time, talents, and energy to the public good and to community causes. However, the benefits provided to service members do not reflect the value national service provides to the Nation, and do little to attract new participants or sustain members. The poverty-level compensation and the relatively inflexible benefits provided to service members leave an impression that the Nation places little value on service and provides shaky ground upon which to build propensity to serve.

The current value of the living allowance creates a particularly significant barrier and prevents some from serving despite their interest. As noted above, the current average living allowance for full-time AmeriCorps State and National members is just above the 2019 Federal poverty line for a household of one ($12,490).¹²⁴ Many participants therefore rely on outside financial help, often from family, while others apply to poverty assistance programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to make ends meet.

Senior Corps' Foster Grandparent and Senior Companion Programs offer low-income older Americans a small stipend to cover expenses related to their service. These stipends are paid at an hourly rate, and volunteers are eligible to receive other assistance such as automobile insurance and reimbursement for transportation and meals. The Senior Companion Program, like the Foster Grandparent Program, requires volunteers to be age 55 or older and to have an income below 200 percent of the poverty line. Volunteers in these programs receive similar benefits. In 1978 the Foster Grandparent and Senior Companion Program stipends were set to $2.00 an hour, approximately 75.5 percent of the Federal minimum wage of $2.65.¹²⁵ As of 2019, the Foster Grandparent Program and Senior Companion Program volunteers earn an hourly stipend of $2.65 for their service,¹²⁶ which is only 36.5 percent of the current Federal minimum wage.

In addition to compensation, post-service awards play an important role in attracting new participants to national service. The National and Community Service Trust Act of 1993 established the Segal Award as the primary Federal education benefit for members who complete a term of service in any of the three AmeriCorps programs. All AmeriCorps alumni are eligible for a Segal Award, and the VISTA program offers their members the option of receiving a discounted cash payout instead. The value of the Segal Award is tied to the value of the Pell Grant ($6,195 for the 2019–2020 academic year). The award can be used toward college tuition, student loans, or fees for vocational training at institutions of higher education and vocational schools that qualify under the U.S. Department of Education's Title IV student aid program. Seventy-eight percent of national service alumni use the Segal Award to pay for college or technical training or to repay student loans.¹²⁷

However, unlike most Federal education awards—including Pell Grants, benefits offered through the Post-9/11 GI Bill, and Fulbright scholarships—the Segal Award is treated as income by the Internal Revenue Service and subject to taxation when used by alumni for tuition, student loan repayment, or both. AmeriCorps alumni do not receive the award themselves; rather, it is sent directly to the institution of higher education or to the student loan provider. CNCS provides information to members and alumni to inform them of these taxation requirements, though the Commission learned from conversations with alumni that some remained unaware of the award's taxability until after they attempted to use it and that others who did know of it were discouraged from using the award at all.

Commissioners also heard from national service alumni about difficulties they have faced in finding affordable housing or meeting other basic needs; unfortunately, CNCS cannot accurately assess members' financial hardships, because it lacks both systematically collected data on income and self-reports on financial decisions made by members who are serving. CNCS currently collects data primarily through AmeriCorps applications, enrollments, and the exit surveys given at the end of a member's service commitment. The application asks potential members to provide their demographic data but seeks no information related to socioeconomic status. In addition, member applications are provided by CNCS for AmeriCorps VISTA and NCCC positions, but many AmeriCorps member organizations have their own application processes and questions. The exit survey assesses areas that include the training and activities performed by the member, the member's satisfaction with their experience, and political engagement and social cohesion.

The AmeriCorps State and National living allowance is meant to cover members' basic cost-of-living expenses during their term of service, but a body of evidence reveals that the living allowance falls short—and that shortfall causes a substantial barrier to participation in national service. Although the Foster Grandparent and Senior Companion Programs are both intended to help alleviate poverty for older Americans, they provide volunteers only a small fraction of the Federal minimum wage. Increasing these allowances will make these programs accessible to a wider population and reduce members' dependency on social safety net programs.

Jim's Story

While a student at Vanderbilt University, I participated in volunteer activities and service-learning experiences that sparked my desire to do something for the greater good. After graduating in 1993, I decided to get involved in volunteerism and service instead of pursuing a career in anthropology or computer science, which I had studied. However, I did not know what opportunities were available besides the Peace Corps, so I took a temporary job while looking for something more meaningful. The next summer a friend told me about a new national service program called AmeriCorps that was starting in Nashville. It did not take much convincing for me to decide that AmeriCorps was the service I had been waiting for. As a member of the first class of AmeriCorps, I dedicated a year to serving low-income senior citizens through the TenneSenior Service Corps. Traveling throughout thirteen counties in Middle Tennessee holding health fairs at senior citizen centers, we routinely found seniors with dangerously high blood pressure, blood glucose, or cholesterol, many of whom had not seen a doctor in years. We also provided minor in-home service projects for low-income senior citizens in the region such as repairing rotted floorboards on a porch or painting a house for the first time in years. These things would have gone undone if not for our AmeriCorps program. Despite the financial hardship caused by the small living allowance, my AmeriCorps service was so rewarding that it led me to dedicate my career to national service.

Unlike other scholarships and Federal awards, the Segal Award is taxed as income when used, resulting in tax burdens for national service alumni. Compounding this issue, the Segal Award cannot cover the average tuition for a full academic year at a public university. Taken together, these two problems drastically reduce the effectiveness of the education award in helping national service alumni to attain more schooling. In addition, the taxation of the Segal Award leads to disgruntlement among those who are best positioned to be advocates for national service: alumni. The Commission believes that members who participate in a full term of national service deserve an award that covers the full cost of a year of in-state schooling at a public institution.

At the same time, the Commission recognizes that the Segal Award has limited value for those without student loans or any plans to pursue additional education after their term of service. Flexibility could be added to ensure that members are not excluded from one of the main benefits of AmeriCorps service. Allowing all members the option of taking a discounted cash payment in lieu of the Segal Award will make national service more attractive to a wider range of people.

Due to restrictions included in annual appropriations bills, most AmeriCorps members cannot use the Segal Award to pursue training and assistance programs outside a limited set of institutions; Congress should ease this restriction. These changes, coupled with an increased Segal Award, would open the door more widely to continued education for national service alumni.

Even though postsecondary education benefits are frequently advertised as an incentive for participation in national service, too few institutions of higher education assist in making their offerings affordable for national service alumni. The provision of fee waivers, matching funds, course credits, and other incentives for national service alumni would lower the costs associated with earning postsecondary degrees. Reducing these costs, in tandem with other incentives offered as part of a service term, would boost Americans' ability to pursue higher education and, later, find employment.

Current statutory guidelines allow AmeriCorps State and National members—but not VISTA members—to transfer the Segal Award to a member's children, stepchildren, foster children, grandchildren, or step-grandchildren. Loosening the restriction on transferability would make the award more attractive and useful to members over the age of 55 and would expand access to higher education for more Americans. Opening this benefit to more AmeriCorps alumni would also promote parity of benefits across programs.

Current rules for eligibility to receive AmeriCorps' child care allowance are very restrictive. Potential members, particularly low-income single parents, would have a greater incentive to serve if they could receive assistance for child care from informal networks to supplement the child care benefits offered by AmeriCorps. A more flexible benefit plan would also enable members to customize their benefits package to best suit their needs.

CNCS does not collect data on members' pre-service characteristics, use of social safety net programs, and challenges experienced during a member's service term. Policymakers therefore rely on secondary and anecdotal sources of data to evaluate the success of policy changes. Because a significant number of AmeriCorps grantees do not use the standard application, and many members do not complete the exit survey, gaps in data exist. Because member exit surveys do not capture information about those who exit their service term early owing to hardship, conclusions reached from the examination of exit survey results may be biased. A revised and more widely used application that includes socioeconomic questions and a new or more frequently administered member survey might also be of use to CNCS in evaluating efforts to improve the national service experience.

A completion of service certificate would enable national service members to have an officially recognized record of their accomplishments during their service term. More expansive than the current letter provided by CNCS, this certificate would be similar to DoD's DD-214 form and would build on the description of service created by the Peace Corps for RPCVs. It would be useful for a variety of purposes, including applications for jobs and for admission to institutions of higher education.

Restructure Senior Corps

CNCS solicits RSVP grant proposals from eligible organizations through a competitive grant process, and CNCS awards a single grant per geographic area. Currently, organizations interested in offering Foster Grandparent or Senior Companion Programs can apply for grant funding only after an incumbent grantee relinquishes its grant. Program incumbents enjoy three-year grant awards, with an option to enter into another three-year grant for a total of six years of funding before they must fully reapply for the grant. In the FY 2018 Foster Grandparent Program grant competition, only six States participating in the program had open geographic service areas; for the Senior Companion Program, only three States had open geographic service areas. CNCS does not fund more than one RSVP program in the same region, though the grant allows for open competition.

Restructuring the Foster Grandparent and Senior Companion Programs as competitive grants would reduce stagnancy in Senior Corps programming and allow the best programs to rise to the top. The requirements for the competitive grant should be established by the CEO of CNCS, with some conditions set by Congress to ensure oversight and accountability.

CNCS's ability to expand Senior Corps' RSVP program is in question because current law limits the number of grants that can be issued in a given geographic region at one time. Congressional and executive action would ensure that Senior Corps has the ability to fund more than one program in underserved communities.

". . .10,000 ‘Baby Boomers' retire every day and will do so for the next 11 years. This cohort of more than 40 million people represents a source of experience, knowledge, and expertise that we desperately need to tap to improve our communities, our schools, and our health care, among other problems."

 

Expand Opportunities

Since its inception, national service has had diversity as an aspirational goal, but for a myriad of reasons reaching geographically, demographically, and socioeconomically diverse communities has been difficult. The Commission heard frequently from representatives of underserved populations—including opportunity youth, Tribal members, rural residents, and Americans with disabilities—about the challenges and opportunities for them to more freely engage in service.

For example, there are 4.5 million opportunity youth, defined as young people between the ages of 16 and 24 who are neither enrolled in school nor employed.¹²⁸ These disconnected youth are often experiencing challenges such as homelessness, foster care, poverty, and involvement in criminal justice systems and could benefit greatly from national service opportunities.¹²⁹ Programs wishing to reach opportunity youth and Tribal communities often provide wraparound services such as onsite food pantries and transportation vouchers, but these forms of assistance are not required or supported by CNCS. At the same time, the greater scarcity of social resources and high cost of transportation increase the relative cost of operating service programs in rural areas.¹³⁰ Given the requirement to match funding, national service opportunities are often difficult for small, rural organizations to support.

Pearl's Story

I came to the Mile High Youth Corps (MHYC) YouthBuild AmeriCorps program in Denver, Colorado, in hopes of turning my life around. I dropped out of high school at 14 and ran away from home. After hearing YouthBuild AmeriCorps members speak about the differences they were making in their communities, I applied to MHYC and began my service in February 2018. I dedicated my time in the program to earning my high school equivalency, Nurse's Aide certificate, and Segal Award. By working hard and earning independent service hours at food banks, community gardens, hospitals, and nonprofits on the weekend, I reached those goals nearly three months early. I did this while upholding my responsibilities within the program to provide health and wellness services to low-income Denver residents. I then enrolled in college with a focus on nursing. I plan on being the first person in my family to obtain a bachelor's degree. My experience was life changing. Since completing my service term, I continue to be involved with my YouthBuild program by serving on the MHYC Alumni Council and was recognized as an emerging leader by YouthBuild USA. AmeriCorps gave me the confidence I needed to begin acting on the issues I want to change. I was able to turn everything I had been through into something worth living for.

National service organizations continue to find it challenging to provide services and access to service opportunities to diverse and underrepresented populations. Every effort should be made to incorporate diverse populations into goals to expand national service, thereby ensuring that service is open to all people. Overlooking certain populations undercuts the goals of national service and reduces the benefits that it affords.

Organizations, especially those serving in lower-income communities, frequently find it difficult to provide wraparound services to best meet member needs. The provision of even small benefits, such as public transportation vouchers, can stress already-strained budgets so much that some organizations cannot host certain national service members. As a result, populations with a greater need for these wraparound services can be denied national service opportunities, to the detriment of all.

National service can provide a practical means by which ex-offenders could demonstrate their commitment to reintegration into the community. Currently, the paucity of avenues available to those who wish to put their past mistakes behind them leads to a cycle of recidivism and incarceration that harms both the ex-offenders and their communities. National service provides a model that successfully assists populations in transition and in need of job training and positive socialization.¹³¹

Explore New Models

While continued growth from existing models will play an important role in reaching the Commission's goal of 1 million Americans annually in national service, new service models will enhance and accelerate that effort. The Commission explored several possible avenues for growing national service, including fellowship programs proposed previously. The Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act authorized CNCS to establish a service fellowship program that would create 1,500 fellowships over a five-year span.¹³² The ServeAmerica Fellowship program calls for individuals to apply to State service commissions to receive a fellowship equal to a minimum of 70 percent of the average VISTA living allowance.¹³³ This program was authorized but left unfunded by Congress, and thus the expansion of national service was thwarted.

The Commission believes that pilot programs are one way that CNCS and the Peace Corps can explore new processes or provide grants to address specific issues with little risk and great flexibility. Pilot programs are small-scale and short-term but can be expanded if shown to be successful. Under the National and Community Service Act of 1990, CNCS may establish demonstration programs for the creation and evaluation of innovative volunteer and community service programs. Similarly, the Domestic Volunteer Service Act of 1973 (DVSA) grants CNCS demonstration program authority, including the ability to undertake programs that encourage wider volunteer participation and to identify segments of low-income communities that could benefit from volunteer and other antipoverty efforts.¹³⁶ The DVSA also provides an authority for grant funds for demonstration projects linking youth groups and organizations of older Americans in volunteer activities, involving older volunteers in programs and activities, and testing whether volunteer programs for older Americans can advance new objectives or certain national priorities.¹³⁷

Overall, the demand for national service positions overwhelms the supply. Potential AmeriCorps participants are limited by the number of AmeriCorps opportunities and pre-identified focus areas available, and because of these restrictions they are not always able to serve in organizations of greatest interest to them. A fellowship program will empower individuals to seek out service opportunities in their communities without requiring a host organization to undergo the traditional AmeriCorps grant procedures. This new fellowship program would expand by 25,000 positions per year until reaching its goal of 250,000 fellows. Potential fellows, ages 18 to 25, would be selected by lottery, with 80 percent of fellowships awarded according to a formula that ensures that every congressional district receives fellows. A percentage of these fellowships would be reserved for opportunity youth and those in Tribal regions. Fellows would receive a stipend equal to the average AmeriCorps State and National member living allowance for the geographic region in which the service would take place and would be eligible for a Segal Award or discounted cash payout at the end of their service term.

This fellowship program addresses many of the challenges faced in making national service truly "national." For example, more Americans would be able to pursue service opportunities in their communities, because individuals would be empowered to seek out programs that fit their desires, and because smaller organizations that otherwise might not have access to AmeriCorps talent would now be able to host national service members. The creation of fellowships would be a huge boon to the national service ecosystem, especially in areas such as rural and Tribal regions that have few existing philanthropic resources.

Although CNCS has existing authority to undertake pilot programs, CNCS has rarely explored the potential of pilot programs to open new pathways to service and address local needs. Funding for novel demonstration projects would enable CNCS to experiment with new national service models to benefit American communities. Priority should be given to demonstration projects that address place-based models—those whose participants combine resources to address unique local issues—and that focus on the reintegration of ex-offenders into the community, such as those that offer a positive, supportive environment in which ex-offenders can gain job experience.

Increase Private-Sector Investment

National service programs were designed to be public-private partnerships linking the Federal Government, the nonprofit sector, and community supporters. According to the CEO of CNCS, national service programs annually draw on more than $1.26 billion from businesses, foundations, public agencies, and other outside sources—an amount that exceeds the Federal appropriation of $1 billion for CNCS.¹³⁸ Not only do some corporations serve as funding partners to national service programs, but several are creating their own service corps so that their employees can lend their time and talents to their customers and to the communities in which they operate. The Federal Government and the private sector could further utilize these partnerships to make service more relevant and accessible.

Reimagine Public-Sector Coordination

Since its inception, CNCS has joined with other Federal agencies, such as the Department of the Interior, Department of Agriculture, and Department of Education, to create Federal service corps. Federal service corps are partnerships between CNCS, another Federal agency, and typically a nonprofit or other nongovernmental organization that create national service opportunities for AmeriCorps members or Senior Corps volunteers while helping to accomplish agency or Administration objectives. National service members can help Federal agencies advance initiatives and Administration objectives by using a low-cost Federal resource. Federal agencies without a service corps should assess the feasibility of partnering with CNCS to create one.

The Peace Corps seeks to expand access to international service for more Americans but faces challenges in creating additional opportunities, especially for older Americans and Americans with disabilities. While the Peace Corps is capable of supporting members with some types of disabilities—one member with hearing loss notes that "since Peace Corps' inception in 1961, more than 60 deaf Americans have successfully served as Volunteers"¹⁴¹—leadership has shown interest in exploring more flexible models to engage more Americans.¹⁴² Limits on resources and authorities have obstructed this interest in expansion, however.

Apprenticeships and national service opportunities share certain characteristics—such as providing certifications, on-the-job training, and avenues to employment—but the goals of the programs and of those doing the work differ. Many AmeriCorps programs already provide members opportunities to earn industry certifications that can lead to employment. To be registered as an apprenticeship, a position offered through national service would need to meet current criteria—including potentially longer service terms, increased living allowances/salaries, involvement of local employers, and standard curricula.

The Federal Government plays an important role in creating and promoting new opportunities for national service. In addition to actions identified in the recommendations below, Presidents can issue calls to service to increase public awareness and encourage both public and private commitment to national service. But State Governors and legislatures can also work to promote service within their administrations—for example, by appointing chief service officers and establishing dedicated offices to coordinate national, public, and military service, as well as volunteer resources and initiatives. While mayors, city councils, and county commissioners may have few resources for developing national infrastructure, they are well-positioned to put to best use additional support in city hall. With an estimated 19,492 municipal governments, 16,519 township governments, and 3,033 county governments across the country, there are plenty of opportunities for local leaders to take advantage of service to meet community goals.¹⁴³

Peace Corps Response Volunteers are experienced professionals sent to undertake short-term assignments in communities around the globe. Those who have difficulty traveling abroad but nonetheless wish to contribute to the Peace Corps Response mission have limited opportunities to volunteer. Expanding flexibility to allow some Volunteers to serve while remaining within the United States will open new pathways to service for populations who cannot travel abroad.

Despite their similar goals of increasing human capital, national service and apprenticeship programs lack sufficient coordination in their creation and execution. Linking the two could provide people with more direct paths toward a new career, improving their economic prospects.

Currently, those working in such programs as FEMA Corps or AmeriCorps NCCC are unable to extend their service term during a disaster response so that they may stay onsite and continue providing services to those affected by a disaster. It is disheartening to leave a job unfinished, and the option to stay and complete a mission—knowing that they can finish their important work—would provide members and potential members with a greater sense of satisfaction. The seamless transition of disaster response personnel can be achieved by allowing service extensions. Given the increasing severity and frequency of natural disasters in the 21st century, disaster relief and recovery service are becoming more important than ever.

PUBLIC SERVICE

Background

Public servants perform a critical role in the functioning of American democracy. With integrity, honesty, and impartiality, civil servants implement the decisions of elected officials and administer a host of services that fundamentally affect the daily lives of Americans. Civil servants are employees of Federal, State, local, and Tribal governments and represent a diverse spectrum of occupations: they include teachers, law enforcement officers, scientists, health care providers, financial analysts, and customer service representatives. The Pendleton Act of 1883 and subsequent legislation established the Federal civil service as a merit-based system in which individuals were to be judged by their qualifications rather than their political or personal affiliations. The principle of merit-based hiring still undergirds the system today.

Despite the strong belief by leaders such as President George H. W. Bush that "public service is a noble calling,"¹⁴⁴ significant barriers to entering public service exist due to a lack of awareness, aspiration, and access— especially among younger workers, who are underrepresented in Federal civilian employment. Americans under the age of 35 constitute about 18 percent of the Federal civilian workforce, compared with 36 percent of the broader economy.¹⁴⁵ Access presents the most significant barrier—dysfunctional hiring and personnel vetting processes constitute the greatest impediment to serving. An expert panel of the National Academy of Public Administration evaluated Federal public service policies and practices and concluded that "the Federal Government's human capital system is fundamentally broken."¹⁴⁶ To make matters worse, negative depictions of civil servants by some elected officials hurt the morale of the current workforce, misrepresent to the public their role and importance, and undercut efforts to recruit and retain public servants.

Americans are typically less familiar with Federal and State Government career opportunities than with options in the private sector, public safety, or teaching.¹⁴⁷ This lack of familiarity is likely the result of limited exposure to Federal and State employees. Those in public service make up a relatively small portion of the employed population—roughly 1.4 percent of employed Americans work for the Federal Government and about 3.4 percent for State Governments.* Government jobs tend to be concentrated in certain geographic areas, further limiting Americans' interactions with Federal and State civil servants.

In addition, most Federal Government agencies do not operate centralized, organization-wide recruitment campaigns such as those commonly used by the private sector and the military, though many agencies conduct at least some targeted outreach based on their recruiting needs.

Because awareness is a precondition for aspiration, low awareness of civilian employment opportunities in Federal and State Government significantly limits the number of individuals who aspire to public service. In a 2013 survey of college students, 5.7 percent of respondents identified the Federal Government as their ideal career, while 4.8 percent indicated State or local government—compared to 21.8 percent who chose nonprofit or teaching fields and 36.8 percent who preferred the for-profit sector.¹⁵² This disparity may also be due, at least in part, to the Federal Government's compensation and benefits packages, which are uncompetitive in many occupational fields and unattractive to employees who value career mobility.¹⁵³

Aspiration toward a public service career may also be complicated by the blurred lines between public- and private-sector service. Contractors and grantees, which include both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations, perform many roles that are similar to those that are performed or were previously performed by civil servants. Government contractors recruit heavily from college campuses and attract many students from public affairs and public policy programs—and those interested in public service often enjoy greater success in obtaining job offers from government contractors than from the Federal Government.

Finally, negative rhetoric about public employees as well as the belief that the Federal Government is a bad employer may also discourage individuals from pursuing or remaining in public service jobs. For instance, repeated Government shutdowns, in which the livelihoods of public servants are threatened as political bargaining chips, undermine the stability traditionally offered by civil service employment. These attitudes may especially dissuade young people who are beginning their careers from aspiring to public service.

Americans who do aspire to public service find many obstacles to gaining employment in a State or Federal position, as access challenges form the most formidable barrier to increasing Americans' participation in public service. Competitive examining, the standard, merit-based hiring process for Federal agencies, is too slow—with an average time-to-hire nearly triple that of private industry—and often fails to advance and hire highly qualified candidates.¹⁵⁴ For many applicants, the experience of applying for a job at a Federal agency differs substantially from that at private-sector employers, and too frequently those who may be most qualified are deterred by bureaucratic requirements and processes. For hiring managers, ineffective qualification and assessment mechanisms often fail to deliver candidates that meet agency needs. These problems are compounded by the current application of veterans' preference, which in some cases allows an individual who was initially rated as "minimally qualified" to move to the top of the "best qualified" pool of candidates. According to governmentwide OPM hiring data, more than half of all competitive examining certificates are returned without a hire being made—demonstrating the process' inefficiency and its systematic failure to elevate qualified candidates.¹⁵⁵

The inability of the competitive process to reach qualified candidates has directly contributed to the proliferation of special hiring authorities for agencies seeking exemptions from Congress and OPM. Despite the Pendleton Act's original intent to make competitive examining the Federal Government's primary hiring mechanism, in FY 2014 it accounted for less than one-quarter of new hires.¹⁵⁶ Instead, policymakers have dispersed more than 105 separate hiring authorities unevenly across the Government to fill gaps in the personnel system and to help agencies meet critical hiring needs.¹⁵⁷ While these policies produced short-term fixes, they also added to the complexity of administering Federal hiring. Yet for agencies without such hiring authorities and for individuals who lack the specialized qualifications that the exemptions target, the competitive process remains the only way for agencies to meet hiring needs and would-be employees to join the Government. Though the Federal Government has longstanding separate hiring systems for students and recent graduates, recent changes to these programs have made them almost indistinguishable from the standard competitive process—with all of its attendant problems—further undermining the ability of agencies to attract new generations to public service employment.

"Agencies are using exceptions to the standard hiring process to fill 55 percent of their mission-critical positions, and they are using just one-fifth—11 of 51—of the legal authorities available to them to do so."

 

Though current policies create serious barriers for agencies seeking to meet their workforce needs, changing these policies alone would not be sufficient to achieve a high-performing personnel system. Organizational culture should also change—from the top down—to promote strategic workforce development. Too often, agency culture encourages a compliance-driven, siloed, "someone else's responsibility" attitude rather than a talent-driven, whole-of-agency, forward-looking workforce strategy. Despite being granted additional authorities by Congress and OPM, some agencies—due to habit, fear of being out of compliance with the law, insufficient capability within human resources (HR) departments, and lack of interest and support from agency leadership—restrict the use of such authorities by HR staff and hiring managers.

The outmoded and inefficient nature of Federal personnel systems is most clearly demonstrated by the Government's inability to compete for critical skills. Specifically, the General Schedule's rigid classification and compensation system constrains the Federal Government's capacity to recruit and hire individuals in emerging specialties, as well as its ability to fully utilize individuals with cross-disciplinary talent—such as technical acumen and aptitude for project management.¹⁵⁸ Congress and the Administration have started to address these challenges by expanding direct-hire authority and by creating new personnel systems for DoD and DHS cybersecurity professionals. But unless more intensive interventions are undertaken, underlying problems with classification, hiring, promotion, compensation, and benefits will continue to prevent agencies from attracting and retaining the workforce they need to accomplish their essential missions.

Preserving the status quo by failing to make broad civil service modernization a legislative priority will continue to impede the Government from accessing the most capable talent, hamper its ability to carry out its responsibilities to the public, and make future generations even less likely to view civil service as a valuable and worthy endeavor. With just 6 percent of the Federal workforce under the age of 30 and more than a third eligible to retire in the next five years, the Federal Government has reached a critical juncture, and broad changes to personnel policy and practice are necessary to address systemic failures and meet national needs.¹⁵⁹

With dedication and commitment from the Nation's leaders, comprehensive civil service personnel modernization is possible. Positive examples can be found in State Governments, including Colorado, Indiana, and Tennessee. Success on the Federal level will depend on several factors: bipartisan cooperation between Congress and the Administration; engagement of key stakeholders, especially Federal employees; and an approach that builds on areas with the greatest potential for broad agreement.

The public service recommendations in this report address both near-term, urgent problems and long-term, structural issues. The first priority for policymakers should be to improve existing personnel processes so that agencies can function better now. At the same time, the Government needs a realistic approach to replacing those core aspects of the Federal personnel system that are fundamentally flawed so that it can become a competitive employer for any talent that agencies need. Ultimately, it is the goal of the Commission, and should be the goal of Congress and the President, to realize a modern talent-management system that attracts and retains a highly qualified public service workforce so that the Government can fulfill its critical mission for the American people.^*

Findings and Recommendations

To increase Americans' propensity to serve in public service roles, policymakers should remove systemic barriers to access. Specifically, the Commission encourages Congress and relevant executive branch agencies to reform Federal hiring, revamp hiring systems for students and recent graduates, promote a high-performing personnel culture, address critical-skills shortages, increase competitiveness of benefits, and, ultimately, develop a new personnel system.

Reform Federal Hiring

The challenges facing Government hiring are so severe that GAO has identified strategic human capital management as an area of "high risk."¹⁶⁰ In particular, lack of adequate talent management has led to "mission-critical skills gaps" that significantly contribute to 16 of the 34 other "high-risk" areas identified in GAO's latest report.¹⁶¹ For the Government to remain a competitive employer, Congress, OPM, and individual agencies should change the recruitment, application, qualification, and assessment processes to more closely mirror broader workforce practices and to enable agencies to more accurately appraise candidates' credentials.

No discussion of hiring reform would be complete without addressing veterans' preference and noncompetitive hiring authorities. Federal civil service law specifies that veterans who meet certain criteria, such as serving in a particular military campaign or experiencing a service-connected disability, receive preference over other candidates within the competitive hiring process.¹⁶² Dating back to the Civil War, this preference was instituted to offset economic loss experienced by service members in comparison to their civilian counterparts, to ease transition from military service back to gainful employment in civilian life, and to honor the Nation's obligation and debt to veterans.

The Commission received a great deal of feedback regarding the impact of veterans' preference on the hiring process. As currently employed in competitive examining, veterans' preference does not produce optimal outcomes for veterans transitioning to civilian life. Just as importantly, it undermines the merit system and severely limits nonveterans' ability to serve in Government. Veterans' preference is not just a tiebreaker— many preference-eligible veterans are automatically categorized as highest qualified or best qualified, even if they were originally assessed as minimally qualified. Agency officials and public service experts alike agree that this policy damages the hiring process and frequently results in highly qualified nonveterans having little chance of Federal employment, while also contributing to a lack of diversity at some agencies. Further, many of the special hiring authorities that have emerged are intended to get around veterans' preference, thereby increasing the complexity—and decreasing the fairness and transparency—of the personnel system. The recommendations below would make veterans' preference work better for younger, recently separated veterans, helping them to transition successfully to civilian life by ensuring that they are entering Federal positions for which they are a good fit.

At the same time, the recommendations would expand noncompetitive hiring authorities (that is, alternative hiring processes outside of competitive examining) to make it easier for agencies to hire veterans without limiting their ability to access highly qualified nonveteran talent. Proposed changes to noncompetitive eligibility (NCE) attempt to make this hiring option easier for individuals and agencies to understand and use. These changes would enable the Government to more uniformly capitalize on high-performing individuals participating in developmental programs and to facilitate the return of high-performing employees who left to pursue growth opportunities outside of the Government. Collectively, the recommendations aim to make hiring processes more seamless, help agencies better meet their workforce needs, and promote a competitive process that elevates the most capable candidates to achieve the Government's mission.

The Federal hiring process cannot operate seamlessly and deliver the talent that agencies need unless policymakers also maintain their focus on ensuring the success of ongoing efforts to modernize personnel-vetting systems. In April 2018, the Government's background investigation inventory reached 725,000, including more than 500,000 delayed clearances. On average, candidates waited 534 days to receive a Top Secret clearance, with some candidates waiting significantly longer.¹⁶⁴ Though applicants are excited by the prospect of contributing to a meaningful mission, such a long wait period results in many top candidates accepting other job offers and frustrates agencies attempting to attract the workforce they need to achieve their missions. Revisions to the security clearance, suitability, and credentialing protocols have the potential to reduce both the friction between personnel hiring and onboarding processes and the time candidates must wait when accepting a new position with the Government, receiving a promotion, or transferring between agencies.

USAJOBS, the Federal Government's website for applying for civil service positions, needs an overhaul. Applicants expect the process of learning about and applying for Federal job openings to be straightforward. Yet the job announcements produced by many Federal agencies are unintelligible to job seekers who are not familiar with Federal personnel systems, and typically they are not promoted on the third-party job sites used by many highly qualified candidates. In addition, highly qualified candidates who apply using a standard, one-page resume are disadvantaged by review systems that emphasize the presence of specific keywords rather than a holistic assessment of an applicant's qualifications.

"We did an analysis of what an application looked like for a software engineer in the private sector at a major company versus USAJOBS. The former was a paragraph long, stated the mission, and had an easy apply button. The USAJOBS [posting] was seven pages long, and the description of what the job was, was three-quarters of the way down the page."

 

In many Federal agencies the candidate qualification and assessment processes are fundamentally flawed, allowing poorly qualified candidates to advance through the hiring process. These failures occur despite the availability of better alternatives, such as involving hiring managers and subject-matter experts—who are best prepared to determine whether a candidate is qualified—in resume reviews, as well as using validated online assessment tools, such as those offered by OPM's USA Hire system.

When applicants apply for Federal jobs, HR generalists typically review resumes and rate candidates by searching the resumes for keywords in the job description. In some cases, software is used to automatically match keywords and score resumes. These approaches miss applicants with relevant skills and experience that do not lend themselves to an exact keyword match; they also advantage applicants familiar with the process who craft resumes that closely mirror job descriptions.

Many agencies also rely on a candidate self-assessment, which is not a valid method of evaluating applicants. Many applicants mark "expert" on every item, regardless of their actual qualifications, in order to advance in the assessment process; and many highly qualified applicants who attempt to rate themselves honestly are rejected.

Current policy requires agencies to use category rating, even if another method authorized in statute would better meet their workforce needs. Before this requirement was imposed, agencies used a process known as "the rule of three:" candidates were assigned a numeric rating during the assessment process, and hiring managers could select from the candidates with the highest three ratings. While the "rule of three" process was restrictive, some agencies preferred it to category rating, which can result in large, unwieldy, and less-qualified pools of finalists. Congress recently authorized a new selection option, known as the "rule of many," which would allow agencies to use a numerical rating system for candidates and then empower hiring managers to select from a group of finalists using flexible criteria. For example, finalists could comprise the top 10 candidates, or all candidates with a score higher than 85. This system could be more selective than category rating but also more flexible than the "rule of three" method. Full implementation of this new authority, along with clear direction to agencies to use the selection method that works best for them, could help agencies more effectively meet their workforce needs.

Agencies do not consistently notify job candidates about their status in the hiring process.¹⁶⁵ Lack of transparency frustrates applicants and discourages them from continuing to engage with Federal job applications.

Appointing current Federal employees to new jobs in different agencies is unnecessarily difficult, especially when the change is between different job classifications or between excepted service and competitive service positions. A streamlined process by which agencies offer transfer opportunities to their employees could help those agencies put the existing Federal workforce to better use in meeting critical mission needs.

Temporary and term appointments can facilitate more flexible career paths and address short-term agency needs—but they are often underutilized by agencies.

Hiring managers lack effective, well-publicized systems to recruit and hire individuals with NCE or VRA. While some agencies organize electronic job boards and in-person job fairs for individuals with NCE, others do not, and many individuals with NCE or VRA are not aware of these recruiting opportunities.¹⁶⁶ Developing standardized documentation to serve as proof of eligibility for individuals with NCE or VRA would improve awareness of this hiring option and streamline the hiring process. Well-publicized, easy-to-use systems to enable such individuals to express interest in a certain agency or career field and make their resumes searchable by hiring managers across the Government would help connect promising candidates with agencies that need their capabilities.

Currently, when individuals with NCE or VRA apply to a competitive service job through USAJOBS, hiring managers are not notified about their candidacy until all other candidates have been assessed. This practice may unnecessarily delay the hiring process, since agencies already have authority to hire qualified NCE and VRA candidates without completing the competitive process. Forwarding the resume to the hiring manager immediately after an NCE or VRA candidate applies could speed the hiring process and encourage agencies to seek out these applicants.

Finally, many agencies limit their hiring managers' use of noncompetitive hiring—not because of any OPM or statutory requirements but because of internal agency policies or preferences. A lack of information and an overly cautious culture have caused some agencies to underutilize these hiring options, resulting in unnecessary delays for applicants. Clear direction to agencies to eliminate policies that restrict the use of noncompetitive hiring could encourage agencies to make best use of NCE and VRA candidates to more efficiently meet workforce needs.

Many individuals eligible for noncompetitive hiring preferences are unaware of their eligibility and of how to use it to obtain Federal employment. Providing training for individuals through existing programs— such as by updating the Transition Assistance Program (TAP) for service members separating from the military with information about how to use VRA to obtain a Federal job—could encourage individuals to pursue public service and increase use of these hiring authorities to meet agency workforce needs.

Under current law, agencies may request direct-hire authority if they can demonstrate a shortage of candidates who meet minimal job qualifications. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) already benefits from a statutory exception that allows OPM to grant direct-hire authority to VA if there is a shortage of highly qualified applicants. Extending this provision to all Federal agencies would help them meet critical workforce needs with the most capable talent.

Separately, once an agency has been granted direct-hire authority and has selected a qualified candidate, it must still conduct a review of all other candidates to determine whether they meet minimum qualifications for the position. This is a wasteful and unnecessary process that negates the purpose of direct-hire authority— to meet critical workforce needs in an expedited time frame. Removing this requirement would help agencies reduce time-to-hire and better compete for top talent.

The current application of veterans' preference within competitive examining produces suboptimal outcomes for both hiring managers and young veterans. The floating of minimally qualified preference-eligible veterans to the top of the best qualified list results in hiring managers being forced to choose between hiring an individual who is a poor fit for the job, conducting a lengthy pass-over process for each poorly qualified preference-eligible veteran in order to reach a qualified candidate, or simply returning the certification list without making a hire. Thus, the current application of veterans' preference routinely prevents agencies from hiring highly qualified candidates to meet their workforce needs.

Agencies typically implement competitive hiring in ways that strongly favor years of experience over other evidence of qualifications. Therefore, younger, recently separated veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have difficulty competing against older preference-eligible veterans with more work experience. In addition, preference-eligible individuals who have already transitioned from military to Federal civil service may continue to use their preference during agency transfers and promotion (for positions open to the public) for the rest of their careers. This policy limits consideration of transitioning veterans who are using their preference for the first time and prevents agencies from accessing and promoting highly qualified nonveteran talent. For agencies that attract many veteran applicants, the inability to access nonveteran talent poses challenges for attracting a workforce encompassing diversity of background, thought, and experience, particularly as the veteran population is disproportionately male in comparison to society at large.

The Government's hiring model should preserve the original intent of the civil service system—to bring the most capable talent to public service. Hiring an individual who is a poor fit for the job does not benefit the agency, the public, or the individual—especially a veteran transitioning to civilian life. A modernized preference system would empower agencies to hire highly qualified, preference-eligible veterans for their formidable skills and substantial experience—gained in part through taxpayer investment—thereby contributing to achieving the agency's mission for the American people.

Fewer than half of federally sponsored (that is, funded by Federal agencies) internships, fellowships, and scholarships currently grant NCE or noncompetitive conversion (NCC), and many interested, highly qualified, and vetted individuals leave public service because agencies are unable to hire them. National service members similarly cultivate skills and experience that prepare them for careers in public service, but very few national service programs grant NCE to participants. Because current hiring authorities do not encourage employees to blend Federal agency and private-sector experience, many talented employees have no pathway to return with more experience and instead choose to leave the Government permanently. Finally, VRA provides a broad noncompetitive authority under which recently separated veterans may be hired. However, it often remains underused because many veterans do not know about their eligibility or fail to apply for a Federal job within three years of separation—a time span when many young veterans are instead using their GI Bill benefits to attend university.

Agency HR staff expend substantial time manually redetermining eligibility for hiring preferences every time an individual applies for a Federal job, rather than relying on electronic verification systems or a single manual determination when a USAJOBS profile is created or updated with new documentation. Better systems that automate this determination, when possible, and enable a determination to be used for multiple applications would speed up the hiring process while providing better opportunities for applicants to confirm their eligibility for veterans' preference or NCE.

Revamp Hiring Systems for Students and Recent Graduates

The Federal Government offers an array of fellowships, scholarships, and specialized pipelines for students, recent graduates, and rising professionals to enter the Federal workforce because they are unlikely to succeed in the competitive examining process, which favors more experienced candidates. These programs often take advantage of their reputations as prestigious leadership-development opportunities to attract highly qualified individuals with critical skills. Nevertheless, too few qualified recent graduates consider and have access to public service employment at a time when high percentages of employees at many local, State, and Federal agencies are eligible to retire.¹⁶⁹

"[T]he [Federal] information technology workforce has five times as many employees over age 60 than under 30. Meanwhile, it is not uncommon in Silicon Valley firms for the numbers of employees in their 20s to exceed 50 percent. Clearly the Federal Government is failing abysmally in attracting the next generation."

 

Altogether, the Commission identified an estimated 20,000 federally sponsored internships, fellowships, and scholarships—many are unpublicized, and less than half currently grant NCE or NCC. Without NCE or NCC, and without clear guidance to agencies and participants on how to effectively utilize them, agencies are typically unable to hire these participants.

"New hires of student interns fell from about 35,000 in 2010 to 4,000 in 2018."

 

The Pathways Programs face similar challenges. The Internship Program is separated into long- and short-term opportunities, and only long-term interns are typically eligible for conversion to permanent employment after meeting stringent requirements; the Recent Graduates Program is generally available to those who have graduated within the past two years or will soon graduate; and the Presidential Management Fellows (PMF) Program—often considered the Government's most prestigious fellowship for young professionals— frequently fails to retain its participants in the Federal workforce.¹⁷⁰ Eight years after the implementation of the Pathways Programs, student interns hired by Federal agencies shrank to just 11.4 percent of their 2010 level, while appointments of veterans through Pathways more than quadrupled from FY 2010 to FY 2014.¹⁷¹

The inability of talented candidates to succeed in the competitive process has caused many agencies to withdraw from active recruitment on college campuses. After years of struggling to hire students through the Internship Program, agencies without special hiring authorities have scaled back such programs.¹⁷² Recognizing the systemic challenges that the Federal Government faces in hiring students and recent graduates, Congress included a governmentwide direct-hire authority for recent college graduates in the FY 2019 NDAA.¹⁷³ The new authority could be an effective tool for the Federal Government to obtain early career talent, but the restrictive cap on the authority undermines its efficacy. Agency officials assert that the new authority is essentially unusable because the restriction effectuates a limit of zero hires for many agencies.

Finally, given the high cost of postsecondary education and increased levels of student debt, many recent graduates are pressured to pursue careers in which they can earn a higher income. Because of complications surrounding the application process for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, the U.S. Department of Education has approved less than 1 percent of requests for loan forgiveness.¹⁷⁴ This and other loan repayment plans offered by individual agencies are important ways to incentivize public service and ensure that all Americans interested in pursuing civil service careers are financially able to do so.

Taken individually and together, these failures prevent highly qualified and skilled individuals from joining or remaining in public service. The recommendations below seek to improve and add pipelines for students and recent graduates in order to diversify the workforce and meet critical needs.

Programs for Title 5 agencies to hire student interns and recent graduates have historically operated through Executive orders.^* Explicit statutory direction from Congress would be useful and potentially necessary to prompt OPM and other agencies to prioritize the creation of an effective system for hiring students and recent graduates.

The Pathways Internship Program unnecessarily restricts the vast majority of Federal interns from qualifying for NCE and stipulates onerous requirements for converting interns to permanent employment, which together inhibit the program's utility and effectiveness for recruiting students and recent graduates into the Federal workforce. Further, lack of strategic workforce planning also undermines agencies' ability to recruit the most capable young talent.

Demonstration authority would greatly expand the ability of agencies to craft hiring programs that can quickly fill critical-skills shortages while also improving the demographic diversity of their workforces.

Because many Federal internships, such as within some congressional offices and at agencies that have authority to accept voluntary services, remain unpaid, these opportunities are limited to those Americans who have alternative means of financial support. Requiring Federal interns to be paid—while maintaining an exception that allows unpaid work for students who receive college credit for their internship—would expand the socioeconomic diversity of interested applicants and interns and improve competitiveness with private-sector internships.

An error in the statutory language calculating the cap for agencies undermines the new governmentwide direct-hire authority for students and recent graduates by effecting a cap of zero for many Federal agencies. Establishing a realistic, functional cap so that agencies can use this authority as Congress intended would offer hiring officials an additional tool to appoint students and recent graduates on an expedited basis, complementing the above proposals to revamp the Pathways Programs.

The inability of many agencies to hire their high-performing fellowship and scholarship participants to permanent positions defeats the purpose of these programs. In addition, agencies cannot easily create or modify fellowships and scholarships to support their evolving workforce needs. The Federal Fellowship and Scholarship Center would have authority to approve, promote, and facilitate agency-funded fellowship and scholarship programs across the Federal Government; would operate a website portal for potential applicants with information on all Federal agency fellowship and scholarship programs; and would grant NCE to fellowship and scholarship participants. This new approach would help agencies align fellowship and scholarship programs with changing workforce needs to attract to public service a new generation of Americans with critical skills.

The PMF Program is failing to achieve its stated aims of developing and placing young leaders in civilian employment and is instead often criticized for placing only about half of PMF finalists every year, despite its intensive application process. Moreover, despite being advertised as a prestigious leadership program, with unique positions in which fellows can develop cross-functional knowledge and solve problems, it is typically used to fill positions that might otherwise be handled through the normal competitive hiring process. Its revitalization would devolve responsibility for the PMF Program from OPM to agencies and would include two separate tracks, one for leadership development and one targeted at technical skills. OPM would act as an advisory and facilitating agent while empowering hiring agencies to craft positions of worth for themselves and for the fellows.

Current avenues for young talent to enter the Federal workforce are insufficient and ineffective, and agencies now face a demographic imbalance in their workforce. Military service academies and ROTC programs deliver a steady stream of talent into the military's ranks each year and have proved successful in developing leadership among the military's junior officer corps. Creating similar pipelines for the Government could help reduce current workforce imbalances and encourage agencies to engage in more long-term, strategic workforce development. Establishing a Public Service Corps alongside ROTC programs and integrating a cohort of public service cadets at military service academies would mitigate the growing civil-military divide among American youth and promote service more broadly. Such programs would also enable Federal-agency sponsors to get an early start to the clearance process so that students are eligible to serve upon graduating.

For universities without a Public Service Corps, the Public Service Academy grants could facilitate programs that provide similar educational and experiential opportunities and support the development of public service leadership training more generally, without agencies selecting students or providing scholarships for service commitments.

Promote a High-Performing Personnel Culture

Many of the public service challenges and proposed solutions discussed above concern issues of policy—insufficient authorities or barriers in statute or regulation that prevent agencies from meeting their workforce needs. But just as important is the culture within agencies—for example, whether agencies make full use of existing authorities, whether HR staff work closely with subject-matter experts and hiring managers at all stages of hiring, and whether building a workforce pipeline and investing in the training and career development of the existing workforce are priorities for staff across agency functions. Developing strong competency standards, initial training, and continued professional education for HR staff—and just as importantly, robust training on the Federal personnel system for hiring managers, interviewers, and other non-HR staff who participate in recruiting, hiring, and performance management—could facilitate a culture in which strategic human capital management becomes a whole-of-agency effort. Addressing these matters in large part requires leadership from the agency head and senior management.

Some agencies, or parts of agencies, have developed a productive culture and use existing authorities to meet workforce needs. Others struggle in this area. While the culture at an agency cannot be changed directly by a statute or regulation, policymakers could set the expectation that all agencies achieve a high-performing personnel culture by offering resources, conducting oversight, and removing barriers. The following approaches would provide agencies with tools, goals, resources, and motivation to elevate personnel culture from a siloed HR issue to an agency-wide imperative that includes all hands.

Human resources is a critical function that requires highly capable employees; yet governmentwide standards for hiring and evaluating HR employees do not exist, and agencies and OPM do not provide sufficient training for HR staff. Setting clear competency standards would help establish a foundation for elevating the HR profession within the Government and would affect hiring, allocation of funds for employee training, and the strategic role performed by HR within agencies.

Many agencies have developed a culture in which HR is discouraged from using all available hiring authorities and from involving subject-matter experts and hiring managers throughout the hiring process, thereby limiting the agency's ability to meet workforce needs. What is required—and in many cases lacking— is leadership and accountability from the top of the agency to prioritize necessary transformations in culture and operations in order to meet agency workforce needs. Crafting and updating a workforce plan that identifies hiring, retention, and reskilling goals and documents progress with periodic updates would provide agency-wide direction for talent management, as well as offer a mechanism for accountability and oversight by OPM, OMB, and Congress.

Agencies' efforts to increase public awareness of their mission and to inspire the next generation to serve may be hampered by longstanding appropriations riders that prohibit the use of Federal funds for "publicity or propaganda."¹⁷⁶ Clarifying that agencies are not prohibited from educating and informing the public about their activities, mission, and opportunities for public service could help inspire a new generation of Americans to seek civil service employment.

SaNoah's Story

As a young Native American woman from the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation in North Dakota, the idea of serving never really occurred to me. That is, it was my assumption that one had to enlist in the military in order to serve. I have realized that service can take many forms. What's more, I came to realize how immediate the need is for young adults to serve. Service in my life has taken the form of obtaining an education and garnering professional experiences that will allow me to dedicate my career to serving my Tribal community. My goal is to become a medical doctor who will work for Indian Health Service—the Federal health program for American Indian and Alaska Native communities. The very notion of serving in this capacity is what motivates me to keep moving forward with my education. My career aspirations serve not only myself and my community but lend to the legacy of service that makes America the country that it is.

Address Critical-Skill Challenges

Federal agencies especially struggle to hire workers with critical skills through existing personnel systems. Basic aspects of the General Schedule are out of date— for example, the classification system has no place for data scientists—even as technology and industry standards rapidly progress.¹⁷⁷ At the same time, the Federal Government's compensation and benefits packages are uncompetitive for many occupations, especially for employees who value career mobility.¹⁷⁸ Finally, the most-sought-after individuals are often actively pursued by private companies and rarely spend time searching USAJOBS. It is highly revealing and worrying that in FY 2018 more than 85 percent of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) vacancies for scientists and mathematicians received fewer than three qualified—not best qualified—applicants.¹⁷⁹ For these reasons, the Federal Government is unable to attract and retain individuals with the skills needed for it to succeed now and in the future. The Government should critically evaluate how its benefit structure and hiring practices have underperformed and should consider new ways to promote entry into areas of critical need.

"NASA's ‘best and brightest minds' do not perform predictable, repetitive work; in spite of this, almost 100 percent of NASA's workforce is bound by Title 5's definition of jobs/occupations and pay rules, which are rigid, antiquated, and seniority-based and no longer fit today's business model and the actual world of work, let alone the future of work."

 

To attract and retain high-skill individuals, the Government requires modernized hiring platforms, competitive pay and benefits packages, and a work environment that aligns with industry expectations. Policymakers have attempted to address these challenges with direct-hire authority, critical pay authority, and specialized personnel systems, but these approaches do not apply uniformly to all agencies or across all needed skillsets. These existing efforts form a base that could be modernized and extended to agencies with similar occupational needs. The recommendations below aim to make the Government more agile, competitive, and forward-looking.

All agencies need cybersecurity workers, but special hiring authorities for cybersecurity are not consistently available to all agencies.^* Extending an existing model to all agencies would harmonize this aspect of the personnel system across the Government and allow all agencies to compete effectively for high-demand cybersecurity talent.

The Federal Government has not invested enough in maintaining and increasing the cybersecurity and IT skills of current employees. In 2019, the Administration initiated a promising pilot program to reskill current Federal employees not working in the IT field to become cybersecurity analysts.¹⁸⁰ The outcomes of these programs could inform future investments in similar approaches within agencies and across the Government.

Federal agencies do not sufficiently involve cybersecurity and IT subject-matter experts and hiring managers in the recruitment, qualification, and assessment processes when hiring technical talent. The U.S. Digital Service has partnered with the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of the Interior to demonstrate best practices for making full use of existing flexibility within competitive examining to hire technical talent, yet cultural barriers prevent many agencies from taking full advantage of these best practices. Holding agency leadership accountable through a new performance metric could help change the culture and thus spread the use of more effective personnel practices and work environments.

Agencies with a cybersecurity mission cannot quickly expand the civil service workforce with the technical skills, unique platform knowledge, and appropriate clearance needed in an emergency. Yet recent state-sponsored cyberattacks against OPM's security clearance database, U.S. weather system satellites, and U.S. election systems demonstrate the daily threats posed to Government entities in cyberspace and their far-reaching consequences. A reserve program that permits agencies to call up cybersecurity experts could ensure additional cyber capacity at times of greatest need. By building the reserve program around cybersecurity experts who have left Government service for other opportunities, the program would also help the Government to maximize the value of taxpayer investment in developing their expertise.

Increase Competitiveness of Benefits

The benefits package for newly hired Federal employees includes Federal-agency contributions to retirement, health insurance, and life insurance. The retirement plan has two components: (1) the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) defined-benefit pension and (2) the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) defined-contribution retirement plan, which resembles a 401(k) plan. Federal employees may enroll in supplemental benefits, such as dental insurance or a flexible spending account for health care, at their own expense.

In general, the Federal benefits plan emphasizes deferred compensation and is most valuable for workers who spend most or all of their careers as Federal employees. It is less competitive for workers who seek career mobility, since a substantial portion of retirement benefits are not portable and may have limited value for workers with short terms of Federal employment.

Federal retirement benefits, in particular, are also relatively expensive. The Congressional Budget Office projects that Federal civilian employees hired in 2018 will contribute an average of 12 percent of their salaries to Federal retirement benefits (including FERS and TSP), and agencies will contribute another 15.5 percent of workers' salaries during their careers to finance these benefits.¹⁸¹ Because the employee contributions reduce current take-home pay, heavy reliance on them also reduces the competitiveness of cash compensation. An updated benefits design that incorporates options that are increasingly common among private-sector employers and allows individuals to prioritize short-term value may attract more individuals—especially those with high-demand skills—to Federal service.

The FERS pension is a poor value for employees who serve fewer than 20 years.¹⁸² Moreover, the Federal Government has not kept up with competing employers in offering other benefits, such as disability-income insurance.¹⁸³ Developing a new benefit option that addresses these changes in the workforce and competitive landscape—and that incorporates the needs of various agencies and stakeholders—would enable agencies to compete more effectively for talented individuals who value career mobility.

In addition, under current policy, Federal agencies contribute to some benefits—including life insurance—but not to others, such as dental insurance. Some employees might prefer to use the agency contribution for benefits other than life insurance. Incorporating a cafeteria plan within the benefits package would enable Federal employees to redirect agency contributions toward the supplemental benefits—such as dental insurance, vision coverage, and flexible spending accounts—that they value most.

FERS policies apply inconsistently to alumni of Federal-agency-operated national service programs. AmeriCorps VISTA and Peace Corps alumni who become Federal employees may obtain FERS pension service credit by making a payment to the Treasury to cover the employee contribution, but alumni of other AmeriCorps programs, such as NCCC and FEMA Corps, cannot.¹⁸⁴

Benefits represent a substantial portion of compensation for Federal employees, yet prospective hires may not realize their importance. Such ignorance about benefits may make Federal employment seem less competitive than it truly is. In addition, policymakers lack sufficient data on the use of existing optional benefits within agencies, as well as on the opinions of Federal employees about current and potential new benefits.

Sometimes—perhaps unintentionally—policymakers have changed employee benefits in ways that make them less competitive. For example, changes by the city of Memphis made the retirement benefits for law enforcement officers and firefighters much less valuable than those offered to public safety employees by competing jurisdictions, causing retention problems. Careful consideration of how benefits packages accommodate the specific employment circumstances of emergency response and public safety officers can help agencies to attract and retain these valuable public servants.

"[I]t is important to broaden authorities across the Government rather than granting ‘carve-outs' to certain agencies. Patchwork solutions are not optimal because even as they solve a specific hiring problem for one agency, they add unnecessary complexity and create endemic problems to the system."

 

Develop a New Personnel System

Federal classification, compensation, and competitive examining processes have not fundamentally changed since the General Schedule was established 70 years ago. The Federal personnel system is not competitive with that of other employers and cannot meet Federal agency workforce needs. To address these problems, Congress has created work-arounds and alternative personnel systems for some agencies, sometimes in response to high-profile, urgent needs. As a result, Federal personnel policy is not a unified system but a "highly diverse collection of agency-based processes with only loose central oversight."¹⁸⁵ The Federal Government's fragmented, outdated, and rigid personnel system hinders its ability to adequately meet workforce needs. An updated version of the demonstration authority in statute—used productively by OPM and other agencies—could create the practical knowledge base and a viable set of tools to build a new personnel system that remains competitive into the future.

A revitalized demonstration-project authority could be key to taking a different approach to Federal hiring—one built on experimentation and gradual, sustained improvement. Currently, demonstration projects are restricted in time and scale, and when they succeed agencies cannot act on those results without legislative action. These obstacles limit the utility and effectiveness of demonstration projects for improving the Federal Government's hiring processes.

Because the classification, hiring, and compensation systems interact in ways that obstruct Federal-agency efforts to hire STEM professionals, agencies that hire significant numbers of STEM professionals are ideal candidates to test a new talent-management system. The results of a pilot project would establish an evidence base that could inform future efforts to comprehensively modernize personnel systems governmentwide.

Modernization of Federal personnel systems will be most effective with iterative, evidence-based approaches, including a thorough review of changes made in response to the Commission's recommendations and their results. Data demonstrating the impact of such changes is necessary to guide the regular adjustment of programs to ensure future success, as well as to achieve buy-in for more wholesale implementation.

By engaging public service experts to develop proposals on comprehensive personnel reform—based on rigorous analyses of demonstration projects across various agencies and disciplines—policymakers can build the groundwork for the strongest package to modernize and transform the Federal Government into a competitive employer.

INTEGRATE MILITARY, NATIONAL, AND PUBLIC SERVICE

Findings and Recommendations

The Nation thrives when Americans step up and serve the common interests of the American people, whether by providing for the common defense, addressing community needs, or contributing to governmental functions. Service cannot—and should not—be categorized as military, national, or public; in fact, the needs of the Nation are best met when military veterans play an active role in the public sector, AmeriCorps alumni take their skills to the Armed Forces, and public servants support the goals of national service. Therefore, the Commission urges policymakers to consider these streams of service holistically when taking action, with a goal of bolstering a shared ethos of service among Americans.

DoD, CNCS, and the Peace Corps all recruit from similar demographics to fill their ranks, generally focusing on Americans ages 18 to 25. The lack of systematic cooperation between military and national service leaders has led to many missed opportunities. Coordination between CNCS, the Peace Corps, and the military to develop recruiting strategies to expand their respective reaches will make possible increased innovation in marketing through the sharing of best practices. Incentivizing transitions between service streams will support those who wish to continue serving the Nation after their current term of service ends.

Testimony to the Commission suggests that national service could be a mutually supporting partner with DoD's TAP. Military veterans often possess skills and experiences that make them ideal candidates to serve as leaders in national service programs. If national service is highlighted as a potential option for transitioning veterans to explore, both veterans and their communities will benefit from their increased participation in national service programs. Similarly, because national service alumni possess a proven ability to work as part of a team toward a larger goal, they are excellent candidates to continue in military or public service. Creating intersecting paths to service careers will provide military, national, and public service organizations with a pool of quality candidates that is both wide and deep.

A Path Forward

The Commission's recommendations to increase participation in military, national, and public service have the potential to dramatically expand awareness of service opportunities, aspiration to serve the community and the Nation, and access to service options. This expansion would advance America's culture of service and help the Nation address critical needs and improve the lives of countless Americans.

Please see Appendix B for additional details and implementation guidance concerning the military, national, and public service recommendations.