Military households fare better financially and are more likely to be confident about retirement prospects than their non-military counterparts, according to a new report from the Employee Benefit Research Institute and Greenwald Research.

“In the military, there is a lot of [financial] training built into their programs alone,” Brian Kloss, assistant vice president of USAA’s enterprise advice group, said during a July 25 webinar discussing the report’s findings. When a service member joins the military, gets promoted, deploys or prepares to leave the service, “all of those … are moments where financial education is provided and … [is] mandatory for the military,” Kloss said.

The report, “Military Households and Retirement: Findings From the 2024 Retirement Confidence Survey,” included responses from 2,521 Americans collected online between Jan. 2 and Jan. 31 to reach its findings. Of those respondents, 809 were from military households, including 330 who were still working and 499 retirees, and just under half of them were Army households.

Checkpoints throughout soldiers’ careers ensure that they can enjoy a “secure retirement,” said Robyn Mroszczyk, an accredited financial counselor and the Financial Education Program manager with the Army’s Directorate of Prevention, Resilience and Readiness at the Pentagon.

“Financial literacy provides the pathway for sustaining financial well-being and resiliency, with benchmarks of meeting all financial responsibilities, building wealth, obtaining a sound financial future and a secure retirement,” Mroszczyk said in an Army news release from earlier this year.

Every year, an average of 22,500 soldiers retire across all components, according to Army data.

Military households are more likely to enjoy high levels of financial assets and have less debt than non-military households, the report found.

“Forty-nine percent of military households have $250,000 or more in financial assets, compared with 40 percent of the non-military households having this amount,” the report found. “As for debt, 55 percent of military households consider debt to not be a problem, while a lesser share (46 percent) of non-military households consider debt to not be a problem.”

Within the higher two income groups studied, military households also were more likely to be confident in their retirement prospects than non-military households.

“In the higher-two income groups, military households are more likely to be confident that they will have enough money to cover basic expenses than non-military households,” the report found. “Again, military households in the higher-two income groups are more likely to be confident they are doing/did a good job at preparing financially for their retirement than their non-military counterparts.”

Though military households experience greater assets and retirement confidence, some retirement rites of passage appear to be universal.

“While military service can put individuals on a better track for retirement, they still face many of the same issues as those who have not been in the military, such as when to retire, preserving retirement assets, and working in retirement,” the report found.

Read the full report here.