People turn to the military when they don’t have a job – centuries of empirics.

Economic hard times are a driving force in what the Department of Defense is calling the best recruitment year since 1973. "We're pleased to report that for the first time since the advent of the all-volunteer force, all of the military components, active and reserve, met their number as well as their quality goals.… [T]hat's the first time that's been achieved for every component since the start of the all-volunteer force in 1973," said Bill Carr, head of personnel for the Department of Defense. In his October report on 2009 recruitment, he attributed part of the success to high unemployment rates in the US, in addition to increased spending on recruits and better military salaries. ACROSS THE SERVICES, THE MILITARY MET all its goals and, after years of lowering standards during the peak of fighting in Iraq, this past year attracted one of the most educated groups to the military in nearly a decade. All the services modestly exceeded their recruiting goals, with the Army having the most success, making 108 percent of its target. In sum, the US Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force brought in nearly 169,000 new recruits, while the National Guard and Reserve forces brought in about 138,000. There is some question as to the significance of the military's record-level recruiting year. Some have pointed out that the services exceeded their goals only after lowering them, so in actuality fewer people joined the military this year than last. However, the military has also managed to attract an undeniably more qualified core of recruits. The number of Army recruits with a high school degree was up 11 percentage points from last year. Across the services, 96 percent of recruits had a high school diploma, the strongest percentage since 1996. Additionally, the services saw the best showing on their math and verbal aptitude test since 2004 with 73 percent of recruits scoring above average. For the US military, high unemployment rates have always meant a good thing for recruiting, says Lindsay Cohn, a political science professor who specializes in military personnel issues at the University of Northern Iowa. As far back as the Civil War, people have been turning to the military when the job market goes south. "All kinds of people are losing their jobs, and all kinds of people of different levels of education and different levels of experience are going to look to the military to support their family," she says. "So you also get a quality spike when [an economic crisis] happens." THAT QUALITY SPIKE IS NOTICEABLE, says Sgt. Greg Grayson, commander at the downtown Boston Army recruitment office where a jovial crew of soldiers in camouflage and several life-size cutouts of smiling soldiers greet visitors. "There has definitely been an increase in degree-credentialed applicants," he says. "They're done with school and the job market is not what they thought it was going to be."