GI Bill

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

The GI Bill begins with provisions concerning disabled veterans, those most in need of immediate help. American Legion head Warren Atherton thought that disabled veterans had experienced delays when they made claims for medical services or therapy. He believed that new legislation should give high priority to the needs of those men and women in uniform who came home with physical or mental disabilities. Title I, Section 100, gives the Veterans Administration (VA) the status of an “essential war agency” and authority to secure personnel and equipment to meet its obligation to care for disabled veterans. Only the War Department and the Department of the Navy had a higher claim on scarce resources. Section 101 provides the VA with $500 million for the construction of new hospitals, authority to secure supplies and equipment to operate medical facilities, and authorization to use members of the army and navy to carry out its duties.

The remaining sections of Title I, Chapter I, reflect the American Legion's concern that those who served in the armed forces had not been getting prompt payment of the money due them or sufficient information about how to secure any unpaid compensation or necessary medical treatment. The legislation addresses these matters by stating that at the time of discharge, a member of the armed services must receive most or all of the pay he or she is owed and information about how to file “a claim for compensation, pension, or hospitalization.” In addition, the legislation stipulates that those who require a prosthesis, such as an artificial limb, are entitled to therapy to help them use such a device properly. The qualifications in this part of the legislation (Sections 103–105) protect veterans against any loss of their rights or benefits. According to Chapter II, representatives of veterans organizations, such as the American Legion or the Disabled Veterans of America, can be stationed on bases or posts where members of the armed forces are discharged to help those men and women take advantage of all the benefits the legislation provides. The final sections of this title ensure that veterans can appeal the terms of their discharge or the decisions of retirement boards.

Title II, which covers educational benefits, is one of the two most important parts of the GI Bill. This title begins by establishing eligibility requirements. To qualify, a man or woman had to be discharged on terms other than dishonorable after serving at least ninety days in the armed forces between September 16, 1940, and the end of World War II. The beginning date was when the Selective Service Act, the first peacetime draft law in U.S. history, took effect. Eligible veterans are those whose education had been “impeded, delayed, interrupted, or interfered with.” Congress made it easy for most veterans to meet this last requirement, since it deemed qualified those who were no more than twenty-five years of age at the beginning of their military service. Any veteran who satisfied these requirements could receive $500 to study for one year at a college or university, vocational school, professional school, or another type of educational institution specified at the end of Section 400. Benefits for additional years of study, up to a maximum of four, could go to veterans based on the length of their service in uniform.

The annual allowance of $500 for tuition, books, equipment, and supplies may seem extremely small in view of the enormous increase in higher education costs since the passage of the GI Bill. But at the end of World War II, tuition at even the most expensive American universities was less than $500. In addition, the legislation provides a monthly living allowance of $50 to single veterans and $75 to those with families, amounts that were sufficient to pay for room and board. Former GIs who applied for these educational benefits as well as other types of cash payments under this legislation did not have to prove financial need. A majority of the veterans who got financial help from the GI Bill could have paid their college expenses without government assistance. But these generous subsidies made it possible for many veterans who otherwise could not have afforded the cost of additional education to graduate from a college or learn a new trade.

The other most important provision of the legislation provides loan guarantees for the purchase of homes, farms, or business property. The GI Bill states that an eligible veteran can apply for a guarantee of half of the amount of any such loan up to $2,000. Home, farm, and business prices are much higher today. But at the end of World War II, houses in many towns and cities cost $4,000 or less. Even if the loan guarantee did not cover the entire purchase price, government backing made it possible for many veterans to get loans that financial institutions might not have otherwise granted, and at lower interest rates. The law allows loan guarantees for the purchase of an existing home or the construction of a new one. For veterans interested in agriculture, loan guarantees could make possible the purchase of land, livestock, or farm equipment, provided, as specified in Section 502 (3), that the farming operations are likely to be successful. The same requirement applied to loan guarantees for business property.

The legislation next deals with helping veterans secure postwar employment. Memories of the Great Depression were fresh when the GI Bill became law in 1944; fears of a postwar depression were strong. Maximum job opportunity for veterans was the goal, and a new Veterans' Placement Service Board would have responsibility for providing job counseling and placement services for veterans looking for work. The legislation divides responsibility for helping veterans find jobs between the United States Employment Service, a federal agency, and the public employment services of each state.

Title V deals with veterans who do not immediately find work, and its provisions were controversial. This section states that a veteran who does not have a job can receive a “readjustment allowance,” or what amounted to unemployment compensation. The maximum benefit is $20 per week for up to fifty-two weeks, depending on the length of the veteran's military service. Some people thought that veterans who returned home would be eager to join the “52-20 Club.” This benefit, they argued, could persuade some former GIs that there was no need to take swift action to find a job. Racist thinking also contributed to opposition to the unemployment benefits. John Rankin, for example, insisted that the “vast majority” of African American veterans from his home state of Mississippi “would remain unemployed for at least a year” if they could count on a weekly payment of $20. Atherton, however, replied, that any suggestion that returning veterans would prefer to collect unemployment benefits rather than find jobs was “an insult to the men in the service” (Ross, pp. 108–109).

Disputes also arose in Congress over the disqualification provisions included in Chapter VIII. Disagreements occurred over depriving veterans of unemployment benefits if they were out of work because of a strike. Some members of Congress, such as Rankin, were strongly antiunion and did not want government funds to support, even indirectly, strikes that unions organized. Other legislators favored organized labor and thought that veterans should not suffer penalties for participating in legitimate union activities. The conditions in Section 800 (b) eliminate or soften some of the antiunion provisions of earlier versions of the bill, but they still prevent a veteran from receiving unemployment compensation if he or she is participating in a strike. Other conditions aim at discouraging veterans from leaving a job without good cause or for rejecting the advice or assistance of an employment service.

The remainder of the GI Bill deals with administrative issues, penalties for violations, and definitions of important terms. Because of congressional concerns about increasing the size of the federal government at a time when the demands of war had made it larger than ever before, the VA administrator is required to use “existing facilities and services of Federal and State departments or agencies” as much as possible to carry out the provisions of the legislation. Penalties for violations of this law include the termination of benefits to anybody who “knowingly accepts an allowance” to which he or she is not entitled. Those who commit fraud or make false statements to obtain benefits could pay a fine of $1,000 or go to jail for as long as one year. Finally, the GI Bill was written at a time when public documents used masculine language—he, him, or his—to describe men and women. Perhaps the authors of the legislation were keenly aware that their gendered language did not acknowledge the vital contribution of the 350,000 women who served in the U.S. armed forces during World War II. Whatever the reason, the legislation explains awkwardly that “the masculine includes the feminine.”