Military Pay

Open email to:
Rep. Rep. Joe Wilson, Chairman, House Subcommittee on Military Personnel, including employment issues Senator Gillibrand, Chairman, Senate Subcommittee on Personnel, including military personnel compensation

Dear Rep. Wilson and Sen. Gillibrand,
The Washington Times has an article entitled, "Troops Forced to Rely on Welfare, Holiday Charity". The essence of the article is that military personnel are grossly underpaid, and must rely on food stamps and other welfare benefits in order to subsist. Numerous cases of individual hardship are included in the article.
It is not my intention here to minimize the contribution of our military personnel in the defense of our freedoms, whatever still exist. However, I would like to put military pay in perspective, so that you may judge for yourself whether there is some significant inequality, in comparison with our general public economics.
There is a significant article on the subject in http://learninginlife.hubpages.com/hub/Is-it-Worth-it-to-Join-the-Army-A-Review-of-Army-Pay, and I encourage you to read it. However, I will use a few of those statistics to support my belief that military personnel are not underpaid.
The base military pay of a military recruit directly out of high school and with no significant specialties is $18,000 per year. He or she also has free food and housing. It is said that the free food is worth $4200 per year and the housing $4800 per year. For ease of comparison, let's just consider the new recruit is receiving $22,800 per year, including food, plus free housing.
The fast food system, such as McDonald's and Burger King, have starting salaries geared to employees directly out of high school and with no significant specialties at a minimum wage of $7.90 per hour. At 40 hours per week, this is equivalent to $16,400 per year. It is my understanding that most fast food companies allow their employees free food. If we use the military food allowance of $4200 per year, this brings the total to $20,600 per year for the lowest grade McDonald's employee. This is $2200 below that for the lowest grade military employee on the same benefits.
Some may be interested in the housing aspect. Lowest grade military employees get free housing, which is considered worth $4800 per year. Under the best conditions, the lowest grade fast food employee is likely to live with his or her parents at no cost, except it is also considered worth $4800 per year.
Some may go on to say that fast food employees are underpaid, but I don't want to address that aspect. I am only trying to make a comparison of military pay with fast food pay under present realistic conditions.
Some may also say that at a starting level, fast food employees can't live on $20,600 per year, but they do, which is why they accept those jobs.
Some also may say that a military recruit, with a nonworking spouse and children, cannot live on $22,800 per year plus housing at $4800, for a total of $27,600 per year. True, but let's remember that the lowest pay scale is geared to young people just out of high school and presumably smart enough to not yet have started a family.
Therefore, we have to look at development. As young people age, they are more likely to develop families, which increases their expenses. At the same time, they also have an opportunity to improve their salaries by increasing their skills. This can be done by developing special skills which gives an additional $3200 per year. Examples of those special skills are parachute instructing and fuel specialization. If one develops capability in a foreign language, there is an additional $6000 per year. For hardship posts, there's $1200 per year. For locations of poor living conditions, there is $2400 per year.
If the military person prefers to live off-base with wife and children, he or she receives a separate food and housing allowance of $16,600.
All in all, it doesn't sound too bad to me, but you be the judge.