Gold Star and Surviving Spouse Career Services Act
This bill, titled the Gold Star and Surviving Spouse Career Services Act, would broaden the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Disabled Veterans’ Outreach Program (DVOP) to serve not only eligible veterans but also certain spouses. Specifically, it adds spouses of veterans and spouses of service members who died in service to the list of people who can receive DVOP career services (like job training, employment services, and career counseling). The change aims to provide surviving and Gold Star families with access to the same veteran-focused employment assistance that DVOPs currently offer, formalizing their eligibility through a new definition of “eligible person.” In addition to expanding eligibility, the bill adjusts the statutory language to remove a limitation tied to “non-veteran-related” language and to explicitly include the newly defined categories of spouses. The key effect is a policy shift from limiting DVOP services to veterans to enabling eligible spouses (including those who lost a loved one in service) to participate in DVOP programs.
Key Points
- 1Short title established: The act is named the “Gold Star and Surviving Spouse Career Services Act.”
- 2Expansion of DVOP eligibility: The bill expands the Disabled Veterans’ Outreach Program to include not just eligible veterans but also “eligible persons” (spouses) as defined in the bill.
- 3Definition of eligible person: New subsection defines “eligible person” as (1) any spouse described in 4101(5) of title 38, United States Code; or (2) the spouse of any person who died while a member of the Armed Forces.
- 4Specific statutory edits: The bill adds the phrase “and eligible persons” in multiple places throughout section 4103A to broaden references from “eligible veterans” to include eligible persons; it also removes the term “non-veteran-related” in subsection (d)(1) to broaden scope.
- 5Administrative framing: The changes are limited to eligibility and definitional terms; the bill does not specify new funding levels or programmatic requirements beyond extending eligibility to spouses.