For decades, a military spouse’s paycheck — if it existed at all — has been framed as “extra” income: money for vacations, savings or discretionary spending.
But for many military families today, that framing is not only outdated, it’s inaccurate.
“Families don’t just need to survive — they need to save,” said Lisa Bradley, CEO and co-founder of R. Riveter, an online retail business built around flexible, portable employment for military spouses.
Founded in 2011 and gaining national attention after appearing on “Shark Tank,” R. Riveter hires military spouses to handcraft handbags from wherever they’re stationed — work Bradley says is about more than providing jobs.
“Stability at home directly affects military readiness,” Bradley explained. When families are financially stretched, she says, that stress doesn’t stay at home.
That reality shows up across the military community. While housing allowances and pay tables may suggest one income should be sufficient, they often fail to account for rising housing costs, childcare gaps, frequent moves, and caregiving responsibilities.
Jennifer Barnhill, author of “The Military Stories You’ve Been Told & the Ones You Need to Hear” and longtime military spouse and advocate, says the misconception that spouses don’t need to work remains deeply ingrained.
“There are many narratives surrounding military spouse employment that are just plain wrong. One of them is that military spouses don’t need to work,” Barnhill said. “This dated mindset sees spouses as dependents, hanging from and relying on service members for support. In reality, the military depends on those it calls dependents to build morale, take care of the homefront, and absorb the brunt of disruptions caused by military life without complaint.”
Erica H., a military spouse living in San Diego, left her nursing career behind and joined R. Riveter in 2018 when deployments and lack of child care made 12-hour hospital shifts unrealistic. Even if child care was available, it would have consumed her entire paycheck.
A friend who saw R. Riveter on “Shark Tank” encouraged Erica to apply. A lifelong seamstress, she found work that fit around solo parenting and unpredictable schedules.
Her income, she said, helps cover household bills. “It also pays for my daughter’s voice lessons. Her shows. Audition prep classes. Headshots,” Erica explained. “Without this income, I don’t know if we’d be able to do all of it; we’d just be existing.”
In Hawaii, federal employee and new mother Meghan Brown described a similar shift — though for her family, the stakes are even higher. Brown returned to work after a brief maternity leave largely because her family is the primary financial support for a close family member.
“The responsibility of funding a second household completely changes what ‘optional’ income looks like,” she said. “There’s an entire second set of bills we’re covering, and without my income, that wouldn’t be sustainable.”
Brown pointed out that military culture still assumes one income should be enough — particularly in officer families, even when the math doesn’t support it. Because of this, she said, “the military doesn’t really take spouse employment seriously,” typically discounting the family factors entirely during the detailing process.
Nationally, the structure of American households has shifted in ways that make relying on a single income increasingly rare. Nearly half of all married-couple families in the United States now have two working spouses, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Why would military families be any different? According to the recently released 2025 Blue Star Families Military Family Lifestyle Survey, 68% of military families said that two incomes are “vitally important to their family’s financial well-being.”
“This mindset [that military spouses don’t need to work] ignores the modern reality that in America, we need two incomes to make ends meet,” Barnhill said. “Military spouse employment is no longer a nice to have; it is a national security imperative, requiring the Department to modernize the way it prioritizes the military spouses on which it depends.”
That disconnect has consequences. “Some families are just trying to survive,” Brown added. “They don’t even have enough money for groceries and diapers on one income.”
As policymakers grapple with retention challenges, Bradley argued the solution isn’t complicated.
“When we talk about readiness, we have to include the whole family,” Bradley said. “Supporting spouse employment isn’t a ‘nice to have.’ It’s essential to keeping military families — and the force — strong.”
