Military Pay and Benefits

Report Outline
Attacks on Compensation System
Scope of Military Remuneration
Future of All-Volunteer Force
Special Focus

Attacks on Compensation System

Marked Improvement Since End of Draft

Pay and benefits in the U.S. armed forces have improved markedly since military conscription ended five years ago. The days of $75-a-month recruit pay are only a distant memory. Today, fresh enlistees earn nearly $400 a month in basic pay. And it is calculated that housing and rations allowances and tax advantages are worth an additional $200 a month. The lowest ranking officers receive $12,450 in total compensation.

Manpower costs account for 57 per cent of the military budget in this fiscal year and 55 per cent of the $125.5 billion proposed budget for fiscal 1979. Those figures compare with the last year before the Vietnam buildup — fiscal 1964 — when manpower costs consumed about 48 per cent of the defense budget. A recent study by the General Accounting Office said $18 billion in defense spending between 1971 and 1977 was directly attributable to the all-volunteer force. Pay raises accounted for $14 billion of the extra outlay.

The Pentagon questions the way the GAO computed these figures. Nevertheless, Department of Defense officials concede that the cost of maintaining all-volunteer military forces is high and will continue to be high. “Because military service is no longer an expected obligation of citizenship,” Secretary of Defense Harold Brown told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Feb. 7, “it is no longer safe simply to assume that junior soldiers, sailors and airmen perceive society's support and appreciation for their service. Many military personnel will judge society's support and measure their satisfaction to a considerable degree by how well the services provide for their basic needs…. The quality of life support for the soldier is a critical ingredient to enlistment, retention, commitment to service and readiness.”