Investing in Veterans, Not Just Supporting Them: What New Jersey’s Debate Signals for America

TL;DR — “Veterans can drive N.J.’s future economy, but we’re stuck in the past.”

• The article argues that while many states offer ceremonial support to veterans, what’s really needed is active investment — treating veterans and their families as drivers of economic growth rather than passive beneficiaries.

• Veterans launch businesses at significantly higher rates than non-veterans, and military spouses and family members also offer unique skills (adaptability, resilience, project management) that make them valuable contributors to entrepreneurship and the workforce.

• States like Texas and Florida are described as capturing this potential by offering veteran-specific business incentives, streamlined licensing, preferential contracting for veteran-owned firms, and support structures that turn military experience into competitive economic advantage.

• The article calls on New Jersey to adopt similar policies — tax incentives, procurement quotas, veteran business accelerators, and licensing reforms — to stop losing business, talent, and innovation to states already treating veteran entrepreneurship as an economic strategy.

• For (NIVW), this reinforces the core message: recognition of veterans is meaningful only if it’s paired with real structural investment — making veterans and their families central to economic growth and community resilience.

Read the full article here:
https://www.nj.com/opinion/2025/12/veterans-can-drive-njs-future-economy-but-were-stuck-in-the-past-opinion.html

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As National Invest In Veterans Week® (NIVW), we see Scott E. Rutter’s recent guest column in NJ.com for what it is: a warning shot and a blueprint.

Rutter, a retired lieutenant colonel, business owner, and CEO of The Valor Network, argues that New Jersey is “supporting” veterans while other states are strategically investing in them and their families as a primary engine of economic growth. He contrasts New Jersey with states like Texas and Florida, which deliberately recruit veteran entrepreneurs, military families, and defense-driven innovators with tax policy, procurement priorities, and purpose-built business ecosystems.

That distinction—support versus investment—is the core philosophy behind National Invest In Veterans Week®. Our movement was built on the idea that veterans and their families are not a charity line item; they are a competitive advantage.

Veterans and families as an economic strategy

Rutter’s column underlines several key data points and lived realities that NIVW has championed for years:

• Veterans start businesses at higher rates than non-veterans, bringing leadership experience, operational discipline, and comfort with high-stakes decision-making.

• Military spouses and family members are often the quiet backbone of those enterprises: managing logistics during deployments, adapting to new environments, and building community cohesion wherever they go.

• Today’s veterans come home with expertise in cybersecurity, logistics, AI applications, advanced manufacturing, drone operations, and other frontier technologies—exactly the sectors governors say they want to grow.

Rutter’s message to New Jersey policymakers is blunt: if you want the next generation of high-growth companies, you must deliberately recruit and retain the veteran community and their families. From the NIVW perspective, that is not just good social policy—it is sound economic strategy.

How states like Texas and Florida operationalize “investment”

In his piece, Rutter points to states that have moved beyond ceremonial appreciation toward tangible incentives. These strategies mirror themes we see across proclamations and partnerships that power National Invest In Veterans Week® nationwide:

• Streamlined business registration and licensing for veteran-owned and military-spouse-owned firms

• Aggressive state-contracting goals for veteran-owned businesses, paired with real enforcement

• Income- and property-tax structures that make it rational, not just patriotic, for veterans to build companies and careers there

• Veteran-focused accelerators and university partnerships in high-growth sectors such as AI, cybersecurity, and advanced manufacturing

When governors and legislators combine these tools, the result is not simply “veteran programs.” It is a competitive economic platform that attracts entrepreneurs, capital, and employers who value the veteran talent pipeline.

That is precisely the ecosystem National Invest In Veterans Week® was designed to highlight and scale.

Where New Jersey stands—and what could change

New Jersey possesses much of the raw material Rutter describes: a proud military tradition, access to capital, major universities, and a history of world-changing innovation—from Bell Labs to life-sciences corridors.

What it lacks, he argues, is a cohesive veterans-investment thesis.

The proposed New Jersey Veterans Investment Act that Rutter sketches out would change that by:

• Treating veteran and military-family employment incentives as core economic-development tools

• Establishing meaningful state-contracting targets for veteran-owned businesses

• Building accelerators tied to universities and focused on technologies where veteran skill sets are strongest

• Recruiting veteran-owned firms and transitioning service members with the same intensity used to court large corporations

From the NIVW vantage point, such legislation would do more than improve one state’s rankings. It would signal that New Jersey intends to compete in the same arena as states already leveraging veteran talent as a growth driver.

How this connects to National Invest In Veterans Week®

National Invest In Veterans Week® was created to move the national conversation from “thank you for your service” to “how are we investing in your leadership?”

The Congressional Record recognition of NIVW, along with proclamations from governors, state legislatures, county commissions, and mayors across the country, has helped crystallize a simple message:

Veterans and their families are not peripheral to the economy—they are central to its future.

Rutter’s call for New Jersey to step up aligns directly with that mission. His emphasis on veteran family members—spouses, children, caregivers—as co-architects of economic opportunity mirrors the reality we see across our state and international veterans-domain network:

• Many of the most resilient veteran-owned enterprises are truly family enterprises.

• Military spouses often carry portable careers in healthcare, education, technology, and small business management—fields that anchor communities.

• When policy recognizes both the veteran and the family unit, retention, entrepreneurship, and long-term community investment all rise.

As governors, legislators, and economic-development leaders look ahead to the next National Invest In Veterans Week®, this New Jersey conversation should be viewed as a model, not a one-off op-ed.

A call to action from the NIVW lens

For policymakers far beyond New Jersey, Rutter’s argument surfaces three practical questions:

1. Is your state merely “supporting” veterans, or is it strategically investing in them as economic assets?

2. Do your tax, procurement, and regulatory structures make it obvious that veteran-owned and military-family-owned businesses are wanted and prioritized?

3. Are you building infrastructure—accelerators, university partnerships, targeted recruitment—to capture the talent leaving nearby bases and installations each year?

National Invest In Veterans Week® will continue to spotlight leaders who answer “yes” to those questions and challenge those who do not.

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Check out the 9th Annual Vetrepreneur Summit in Jacksonville (Dec 12, 2025), a long-running gathering of veteran and military-family entrepreneurs. The Summit is now nine years strong and serves as a model of how veteran economic empowerment and community entrepreneurship can be built sustainably under .

👉 Jacksonville’s 9th Annual Vetrepreneur Summit – legacy event now nine years strong

FLASHBACK: The Day a U.S. Senator Called It “The Largest Investment in Veterans in a Generation”

National Invest In Veterans Week® goes back to a moment that captured national momentum before our movement ever became a global force.

On September 23, 2023, during a live appearance on MSNBC’s Symone, U.S. Senator Raphael Gamaliel Warnock — pastor, Morehouse graduate, and the first African American ever elected to represent Georgia in the U.S. Senate — laid out what he believed was one of Congress’s defining achievements.

The clip resurfaced recently in veteran circles, and it hits differently today.

THE SENATOR BEHIND THE STATEMENT

Raphael Warnock is not just a lawmaker.
He is the senior pastor of Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, the pulpit once led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and a figure whose rise from Savannah public housing to the U.S. Senate is now part of American political history.

Elected in 2021 and reelected in 2022, Warnock represents one of the most consequential shifts in modern Georgia politics. Alongside Sen. Jon Ossoff, he helped deliver a 50–50 Senate split that shaped national legislation during the pandemic years.

From civil rights activism to faith leadership to emergency policy response, Warnock’s public identity is rooted in service — which is why his on-air reflection about veterans continues to resonate.

THE MOMENT ON MSNBC

Around the 9-minute mark of the broadcast, Warnock recounted the razor-thin margins of the previous Congress and the decisions he believed mattered most:

“We passed a bipartisan infrastructure bill.
We passed the largest investment in veterans in a generation.”

It was a rare, direct acknowledgment of the scale of federal commitments flowing toward veterans — health infrastructure, benefits modernization, community support, and long-term resources.

He continued:

“When I look at the work that we were able to do last Congress, I’m proud of the people of Georgia for setting me to represent them… With that margin, look what we accomplished. We passed the American Rescue Plan.”

What followed was a list of targeted relief efforts — support for cities, small businesses, families, and communities recovering from the pandemic — all part of a legislative period that marked a major pivot toward veteran investment nationally.

WHY THIS FLASHBACK MATTERS NOW

National Invest In Veterans Week® has since expanded into one of the most far-reaching veteran advocacy ecosystems ever built — spanning:

• 40+ U.S. and international “Veterans” domains
• Multi-market syndication
• Congressional recognition
• A global platform for veteran-owned businesses

But back in 2023, this televised moment showed something critical:
America’s investment in veterans is not a side note — it is a national priority acknowledged at the highest levels of government.

Warnock’s statement didn’t become a headline at the time. Today, viewed through the lens of NIVW®’s rapid growth and international reach, it reads like an early marker of a broader movement.

A movement now embodied by National Invest In Veterans Week®.

WATCH THE ORIGINAL CLIP (ARCHIVE)

Source: Internet Archive
https://archive.org/details/MSNBCW_20230923_200000_Symone/start/540/end/600

The New Digital Footprint of Veteran Advocacy: What the World Is Searching For

Here’s the link to the active report (valid until December 19th):
https://app.seogets.com/share/XgdxiIWrEq6ziFdfy2Or

National Invest In Veterans Week® began as a congressionally recognized observance led by Iraq War veteran Jeff Shuford. Supported by proclamations from mayors, governors and regional leaders, the week has grown into a national platform for honoring veteran entrepreneurship, economic empowerment and civic contribution. In just a few years it has expanded well beyond its American roots: NIVW is now celebrated across nineteen states and twenty‑one countries and spans more than sixty global markets, offering mentorship and funding opportunities that uplift veteran founders worldwide. That global reach has amplified the week’s digital footprint, turning it into a search phenomenon.

Analysis of recent search data shows that the majority of queries continue to revolve around the name of the initiative itself. People are not only searching for “invest in veterans week” but also for its formal title and for the names of its founders, reflecting a desire to learn about the individuals and institutions behind the movement. Related queries explore holiday observances (such as the official status of Veterans Day around the world), advisory councils, and even cultural ties like The Five Satins, indicating a deepening curiosity about the program’s heritage and leadership. A new wave of search interest also connects veteran advocacy with cutting‑edge technology: “OpenAI veterans program news” is among the fastest‑growing queries, suggesting that audiences are beginning to see AI innovation as part of the veteran‑entrepreneurship conversation. On the financial front, searchers are asking about retirement accounts for veterans, investment products for wounded service members and how to manage VA disability benefits—signaling a hunger for trustworthy financial guidance.

The geographic spread of search interest tells an even richer story. While the United States remains the primary source of traffic, the fastest growth is coming from emerging markets. Search volume from Bangladesh has surged by more than two‑and‑a‑half times, while new interest from Poland, Czechia, Ghana and Pakistan has leapt from virtually zero to a meaningful presence. Australia has seen search inquiries grow by more than seventy percent, and Nigeria and Germany have roughly doubled. These triple‑digit increases highlight a truly global resonance; communities across Asia, Europe and Africa are now seeking information about veterans’ economic empowerment. Even within North America, Canada’s query volume has climbed by roughly one‑third, underscoring momentum in neighboring markets.

The quality of this traffic is improving along with its quantity. Within the ranking tiers, the share of top‑position queries (positions 1–3) has grown by about one‑third, while mid‑tier queries (positions 11–20) have risen by more than ten percent. This shift suggests that National Invest In Veterans Week® content is moving higher in search results and capturing more qualified intent. Device usage patterns reinforce the picture of deeper engagement: desktop queries have climbed by double digits, reflecting longer research sessions and more deliberate reading, while mobile searches remain strong but stable. Meanwhile, the most‑viewed page continues to be a comprehensive guide on how veterans can invest their disability benefits—evidence that well‑crafted educational content drives sustained interest.

Taken together, these trends paint a picture of a brand in ascent. What was once a grassroots observance is now a global movement with measurable digital momentum. The convergence of veteran advocacy, entrepreneurship, financial literacy and even AI ethics—areas in which Jeff Shuford has become an influential voice—is attracting audiences from every continent. As new queries emerge and international participation accelerates, National Invest In Veterans Week® stands poised not only to honor the past but to shape the future of veteran economic empowerment.