S1204-119

Passed Senate

Gold Star and Surviving Spouse Career Services Act

119th Congress Introduced Mar 31, 2025

Summary

What This Bill Does

Expands the Disabled Veterans' Outreach Program to include eligible spouses of disabled veterans and surviving spouses of service members who died during active duty, making them eligible for career services and employment assistance.

Who Benefits and How

Eligible spouses gain access to workforce services, training referrals, counseling, and related employment support that were previously reserved for veterans.

Who Bears the Burden and How

Labor and veterans-service administrators must broaden outreach, casework, and performance responsibilities to cover the newly eligible spouse populations.

Key Provisions

  • Adds eligible persons alongside eligible veterans throughout the Disabled Veterans' Outreach Program statute.
  • Extends outreach and intensive employment services to spouses of disabled veterans and certain surviving spouses.
  • Applies the expansion to program authorization, staffing, and performance-goal provisions.
  • Uses an existing employment-services framework rather than establishing a new spouse-only career program.

Evidence Chain:

This summary is generated from the full bill text using AI analysis. Expand "Detailed Analysis" below for identified beneficiaries/burden bearers.

At a Glance

What This Bill Does

Expands the Disabled Veterans' Outreach Program to include eligible spouses of disabled veterans and surviving spouses of service members who died during active duty, making them eligible for career services and employment assistance.

Key Policy Areas

Veterans Affairs, Employment, Social Services

Primary Purpose

Expands the Disabled Veterans' Outreach Program to include eligible spouses of disabled veterans and surviving spouses of service members who died during active duty, making them eligible for career services and employment assistance.

Policy Domains

Veterans Affairs Employment Social Services

Main Provisions

Identified Gains
Contextual inference, no direct clause citation
  • Eligible spouses of disabled veterans and surviving spouses seeking employment assistance
Model: codex-gpt-5 | Version: bill_summary_v2 | Source: es

Contextual inference, no direct clause citation

Identified Costs
Contextual inference, no direct clause citation
  • Program administrators responsible for serving and tracking the expanded population
Model: codex-gpt-5 | Version: bill_summary_v2 | Source: es

Contextual inference, no direct clause citation

Legislative Progress

Passed Senate
Introduced Committee Passed
Dec 19, 2025

Received in the House.

Dec 19, 2025

Held at the desk.

Dec 19, 2025

Message on Senate action sent to the House.

Dec 18, 2025

Passed/agreed to in Senate: Passed Senate without amendment by Unanimous …

Dec 18, 2025

Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs discharged by Unanimous Consent.

Dec 18, 2025

Passed Senate without amendment by Unanimous Consent. (consideration: CR S8895; …

Mar 31, 2025

Introduced in Senate

Mar 31, 2025 (inferred)

Passed Senate (inferred from es version)

Mar 31, 2025

Read twice and referred to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs.

Mar 31, 2025

Ms. Hassan (for herself, Mr. Cassidy, Mr. Kelly, Mr. Schmitt, …

Stakeholder Effects

cui bono?

How this legislation distributes effects. Mention counts reflect frequency, not effect magnitude.

Individual And Family Services
2 mentions across 1 clause
+2 positive

Spouses of deceased service members (Gold Star spouses), Spouses of disabled veterans

Government
2 mentions across 1 clause
-2 negative

DVOP specialists and state employment agencies, Department of Labor

1/2
sections analyzed
Full impact breakdown

Bill Structure & Actor Mappings

Who is "The Secretary" in each section?

Domains
Veterans Affairs Employment Social Services

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