VERY Act of 2025
Summary
What This Bill Does
The Veterans Employment Readiness Yield Act of 2025, or VERY Act, is a terminology bill for veterans employment law. It amends title 38 of the U.S. Code by striking employment handicap wherever the term appears and inserting employment barrier, and by striking employment handicaps wherever the plural appears and inserting employment barriers. The bill is aimed at modernizing the vocabulary used in veterans employment and vocational-readiness provisions. It does not change eligibility standards, payment levels, counseling services, training services, or the structure of any veterans employment program; the legal effect is to update statutory wording so future VA materials and references use barrier language rather than handicap language.
Who Benefits and How
Veterans using vocational rehabilitation services, veterans with service-connected disabilities, VA employment counselors, disability-rights advocates, veterans service organizations, legal-aid attorneys assisting veterans, and readers of title 38 benefit materials benefit because the statute uses less stigmatizing terminology and aligns veterans employment law with modern disability-access language while leaving benefits intact.
Who Bears the Burden and How
The Department of Veterans Affairs, VA vocational rehabilitation administrators, VA form managers, legal editors updating title 38 references, benefits-training staff, software teams maintaining VA text templates, and federal publishers bear modest administrative burdens because statutes, guidance, forms, training materials, and automated references must be updated from employment handicap to employment barrier.
Key Provisions
- Amends title 38 to replace employment handicap with employment barrier wherever it appears.
- Amends title 38 to replace employment handicaps with employment barriers wherever the plural appears.
- Provides a terminology update without changing veterans employment eligibility standards, benefit levels, or program operations.
- Requires VA vocational rehabilitation and employment-readiness materials to align with the updated statutory terminology.
Evidence Chain:
This summary is generated from the full bill text using AI analysis. Expand "Detailed Analysis" below for identified beneficiaries/burden bearers with clause-level evidence links.
At a Glance
What This Bill Does
Updates title 38 veterans employment terminology by replacing every occurrence of employment handicap and employment handicaps with employment barrier and employment barriers, without changing the underlying eligibility, benefit, or program structure.
Key Policy Areas
Veterans, Employment, Disability Access
Primary Purpose
Updates title 38 veterans employment terminology by replacing every occurrence of employment handicap and employment handicaps with employment barrier and employment barriers, without changing the underlying eligibility, benefit, or program structure.
Policy Domains
Substantive provisions
Identified Gains
- Veterans using vocational rehabilitation services
- Veterans with service-connected disabilities
- VA employment counselors
- Disability-rights advocates
- Veterans service organizations
- Legal-aid attorneys assisting veterans
- Readers of title 38 benefit materials
Identified Costs
- Department of Veterans Affairs
- VA vocational rehabilitation administrators
- VA form managers
- Legal editors updating title 38 references
- Benefits-training staff
- VA text-template software teams
- Federal publishers
Sponsors
Legislative Progress
Passed HouseReceived; read twice and referred to the Committee on Veterans' …
Passed House (inferred from eh version)
Received in the Senate and Read twice and referred to …
Motion to reconsider laid on the table Agreed to without …
On motion to suspend the rules and pass the bill …
DEBATE - The House proceeded with forty minutes of debate …
Passed/agreed to in House: On motion to suspend the rules …
Considered under suspension of the rules. (consideration: CR H3491-3492)
Mr. Bost moved to suspend the rules and pass the …
Placed on the Union Calendar, Calendar No. 137.
Stakeholder Effects
cui bono?How this legislation distributes effects. Mention counts reflect frequency, not effect magnitude.
Department of Veterans Affairs, VA employment counselors, VA vocational rehabilitation administrators
Veterans using vocational rehabilitation services, Veterans with service-connected disabilities
Bill Structure & Actor Mappings
Who is "The Secretary" in each section?
- "new_term"
- → employment barrier
- "old_term"
- → employment handicap
We use a combination of our own taxonomy and classification in addition to large language models to assess meaning and potential beneficiaries. High confidence means strong textual evidence. Always verify with the original bill text.
Learn more about our methodology