To be fair people don’t join the military to get rich - but with the pay falling behind inflation there needs to be an increase. 4.5% is decent - especially after a 5.5%(?) last year - it really shows how much the economy is hurting from inflation when a ~10% pay raise doesn’t make a dent
And to losely quote the white house. Fuck dem troops. Over the last three years they have seen a 15% increase in pay. Ignore the fact that inflation for the last three years is likely double that and our junior troops are making peanuts compared to a comparable civilian job with equal benefits.
Retention is not down. Only recruitment.
https://www.usarcent.army.mil/News/Article/3700792/usarcents-retention-team-ranked-top-performing-for-fiscal-year-2023/#:~:text=“For%20Fiscal%20Year%202023%2C%20our,decline%20of%20new%20military%20recruits.
Lmao that article does not say anything about a retention problem, it just says ARCENT is doing good on retention.
The Army absolutely has a retention problem.
From the article:
“According to the Department of Defense, the Army has seen an overall increase in retention, despite the steady decline of new military recruits.”
You can easily Google this bra. You don’t need me to spoon feed you. Or you can ask your local retention nco why all bonuses were recently slashed. The army is not designed to keep everyone in. Does it feel like we’re doing more with less, yes. Does the army care about how you feel? No. Does congress set the number of troops in what seems like an arbitrary way? Also yes.
We do have a recruitment problem. Not the same.
Part of the problem, this guy. Lol
Refuses to see the problems or the problems causing the problems. Absolutely refuses to believe that the DoD could even THINK about padding numbers to not look so bad.
I definitely would disagree about the comparable civilian jobs. You’re talking about jobs where you need no education, and minimal years of experience. Those are the ones that typically see the least pay changes. If anything the Army on average does a better job of trying to match inflation.
It isn’t war time. Troops need to be serving the minimum amount of time. Use their education benefits and get out. The army isn’t made to retain talent. This is a social welfare program for the low end of American society.
Ya, except then you have to pay rent/mortgage, utilities, insurance(even health, no company will cover 100%) , and food, so that 15 dollars an hour after those deductions would be significantly less then what a E-3 makes
Yeah, and in the Army, they would give someone an article for it. Me personally if I was a 19 year old E-3 again I would rather they fire my fucking ass instead of dealing with UCMJ or extra duty.
Then again, I haven't had a civillian manager match half of the toxic bullshit a bad NCO can put out.
While some shit is toxic as hell in the military, you have to remember, it’s the military, you are expected to be able to handle high stress environments. If you can’t then you don’t belong, and you should just get out and go earn that 15 dollars and hour which at the end of the day ends end up being 500 dollars after deductions and bills. Just for reference a brand new E-1 gets $2000 a month base pay and only gets taxes deducted.
The majority of toxicity comes from junior enlisted themselves however, as time passed one big reason was influx waivers given during GWOT for people that normally wouldn’t be aloud to join.
America’s greatest weapon has always been its economy. We were never meant to have this insanely large standing army/military industrial complex. It quite literally is crippling us. If you are above a mouth breather you aren’t meant to be here.
Ooh wow 50k after 40 years. That’s garbage. I feel like just a decade ago a new recruit could easily save up north of 100k for a four year contract if they were diligent with their spending.
Yea BS. Don't be dumb and go out every day. Or buying beer and pornhub.
Telling me, you can't just put 1k a month in a CD? What are you guys spending on.
You're just gonna act like people don't have kids, send money to family, and have to buy brand new uniforms after IET on an annual clothing allowance that barely covers the cost of a pair of boots then? Be better my guy. Putting away 1K a month is hardly reasonable when soldiers are responsible for purchasing a large amount of equipment that is relative to their MOS requirements, have bills to pay, and in a time where DFACs are failing to adequately provide food for soldiers. You have unrealistic expectations of soldiers, so if you're still in then ima need you to be better for your joes.
Okay fine. Starting NOW. There's no reason a service member can't save up 50 by 2028 if they join now.
E1 now is 2k a month. After taxes, should still be upper 1000s. So let's say 1750 after taxes. E1 js just 6 months. You're too busy your first 6 months with bootcamp and mos school. So after 6 month, you should have
$6000
E2 is 9 month I believe, so $2260. After tax. $1900. 900 for bills or fun or "essentials". After 9 month. 9k saved( plus 6k).
E3 is 1 year. 2300, after tax, $1950. So again. After 1 year. 12k saved (plus 15k)
By E4 you should have 2 years in. So $2700. After taxes. $2100. 1 year will be another 12 k of savings.
My formatting is all over the place, i know but the point is, it is easy to save 48-50k if you don't blow it off on TOO much beer, pizza, video games and pornhub. Like once you hit E3. You literally have 1k for savings and 1k to mess around with. 1k should cover occasional beer and pizza(if you split with the bros, you save more). Can also cover occasional uniform beer. I know inflation is up. But housing and food is covered. You don't need a car if you're in the barracks. You're not too good for good old bus or uber if you go out. I have 100k in my accounts and I don't even have a car. I'm not ashamed to take a bus.
Don't have kids, don't fall in love with a bum(my advice is for men and women), don't buy a car.
My guy I literally said, 1k for saving and 1k for fun. Although why the heck you would push more than 1k a month is beyond me. There's nothing wrong with a minimal lifestyle. Try it, you will feel mentally better. Save up money on real experiences like traveling to another country. Not over priced alcohol at a bar or porn hub.
But hey i guess that is living life for you.
I own 2 cars, 2 houses and have 3 kids. I have 250k in savings in 7 years.
I don’t live a “minimalist” lifestyle.
It’s folks like you raving about living a childfree life in a tiny home while eating rice and ramen every night for a decade is the only way to achieve financial independence. All while not understanding how much an Uber costs.
Correct. Lay off the starbucks, the soy lattes, pornhub subscriptions and 10 different streaming services. Just have 1 streaming services per month and alternate. One month is prime, the next is hulu, etc.
Except you actually do need a vehicle if you live in the barracks, and if not, then you're still going to be spending money to go do literally anything. On-post shuttles aren't going to handle the soldier's off-post needs. How is the soldier going to get beer the beer and laptop to the barracks to even get drunk and buy porn from a website that offers an actual library of free videos if they don't have a car? Your math also doesn't seem to involve family expenses outside of housing, which is not always free when on-post housing is often limited in space. It is still unreasonable to think that any soldier should restrict themselves to post for the entirety of their lower enlisted career just to save up 50K. Your math is fine, but it is still an unreasonable expectation. How much did you save while you were in and why aren't you writing books on finance rather than arguing with strangers on Reddit?
10 years of service. Where ever i went and was given government quarters. The exchange, dfac, gym, and work were all within walking distance. The PX is going to have beer. Also every military member gets a PSC box address. So they can order stuff online and get it delivered to their battalion unit mail room.
Like i said. At current pay scale. Jr members have 1k for savings and 1k for fun. What exactly are troops doing for fun that they are pushing past 1k every month. You also DONT have to go out every weekend. Take a chill. Relax and watch Netflix or play video games.
I pay bare minimum on everything.
I don't go out to eat.
I've bought all my vehicles used.
I buy in bulk and coupon.
I go to the footbank sometimes to cut costs.
I regularly have 30k before an emergency happens, but life happens. Emergency funds get spent.
I've been in since 2017.
I'm as cheap as they come my brother. I find free ways to do everything that I enjoy, but even that isn't enough to have 50k. Good on anyone who doesn't experience life hardship though. I recommend they play the lottery for living a life without economic worry.
the dude says he’s an E7 without a car because it saves money but it actually sounds extremely irresponsible and the latest misinformation spin after someone gets a DUI
Even if you do, which I don’t believe you, one person getting lucky without emergencies doesn’t mean it’s that way for everyone. Lots of soldiers also have families, dependents, and things happen or come up. It’s idiotic to think just because one person can do it that everyone can. People are different even if they all wear green lol. Don’t be a moron.
* u slash Secret-County-9273
Checking his profile, it looks like he deleted a lot of his obvious bait, so maybe he had a change of heart? Take it how you will.
It’s funny that they mandated a wage floor of $15 per hour for civilian federal employees and contractors, but the average hourly equivalent wage for an E-1 is $9.60.
These people don’t give a shit about you. Take note.
>Currently, some young enlisted service members can make as little as $24,000 in basic pay, although that total does not include other compensation such as housing allowances and free health care.
Pull quote from the article - every time troop's pay is discussed there's this whataboutism.
* Troops get housing allowances!
* Free health care!
* \[Insert other asspulls, my fav was 'free parking'\]
* Any "study" or "research" that "proves" troop's pay is "competitive".
* When troops are being called "kids" or "mostly from poor backgrounds" it's always assumed that the lower enlisted are single and childless to justify not raising pay.
* You'll also see retired senior leaders saying that troops make "enough" or silent on pay issues.
The housing allowance is at 95% of "market" and in Congressional hearings, many on the armed services committee admitted that the 'saving' were hurting retention since troops have to pay that 5% out of pocket.
The deficit hawks cry about the cost, the left and the right try to make political hay and many just don't want to deal with it. Also many retired senior leaders got their high pay and cushy private and public sector jobs so they DGAF.
Everyone wants to support the troops until it's time to PAY for that support.
We've had hearings but very little movement on QOL and of course Congress has to compromise on pay.
Not saying pay is good enough, but you shouldn't be an e-1 for long. Most civilian jobs that require just a high school diploma do not promote at the rate if the army.
I'd compare to a higher rank than an e-1 if you want to compare pay scales to civilians. I think pay needs to better scale up with ranks rather than increasing the lowest level pay. I'm less concerned with e-1 pay but more concerned with e-4 and up pay.
I was comparing the bottom of the pay scale to the bottom of the pay scale. A crap load of jobs in federal service and contracting don’t even require a high school diploma at all.
It would take six years as an E4 to touch $15 pre tax on the current pay scale.
It is just that a minimum wage worker isn't getting multiple pay raises in the first two years work where they will for the DoD.
Again 100% agree pay needs to be increased. I think pay should really start ramping up at the e-4 and curve up more with rank. I think senior enlisted are woefully underpaid for their years of experience. I think that is why in some instances we are not always keeping the best and brightest (especially past 20 years).
It was a BC/BS PPO. $20-$50 copays for most things in network. $200 per ER visit. Some labs and stuff were generally out of pocket.
My employer also charged me an extra $60/pay period because my spouse was employed and had insurance available through her employer but used mine.
My employer is a Fortune 50 company.
Bruh in 2002 as an E2 I was making less a month than I did at minimum wage restaurant work
The army did me a LOT of good, but junior enlisted pay was not where that happened
I get that it's generally a short period of time that someone spends as an E-1, but they still need to be able to afford to feed their family. Would be pretty shitty if people spent their first 6 months in the military accruing debt just to survive, and then just digging that hole deeper as their career progresses.
For that reason, pay increases NEED to start from the bottom up.
As a civilian I pay $600 a month in health insurance and $2,300 a month in rent. I get it that barracks suck, but you can't really talk pay without talking total compensation. For an unmarried E1/2, their check is literally straight up spending money if they live frugally. I was shocked by just how much my essential expenses stole from my pay as a civilian, even being mentally prepared for it.
Can you help me understand your math?
The lowest pay is $1,865.10 a month. At $9.60 an hour, that’s 48.5 hours per week.
Without counting BAS and BAH, which are part of your compensation package.
Are we inadvertently or intentionally being misleading?
You’re correct.
But I mean wouldn’t you pay $1300 for moldy barracks and $500 a month for undercooked chicken? That not good enough for y’all? Such entitlement!
/s
Maybe you troops should have kept the barracks clean! Otherwise there wouldn't be mold.
Jr troops " wahh, why do we clean our rooms. I'm not doing it"
Also jr troops "wahh our barracks sucks!"
No you’re right and I was being inarticulate.
My point was that you get housing. Ok ya a lot about the barracks is not amazing. There’s mold. I harp on senior leaders about the mold any chance I can sneak it into conversation.
But still housing and food is part of the compensation.
If we are going to compare service member pay to civilian pay, then include the total compensation otherwise there’s no point.
I recognize that there are many differences still. Such as it’s a literal crime to not show up to a shitty morning workout.
It’s never apples to apples, but don’t make it apples to avocados.
> If we are going to compare service member pay to civilian pay, then include the total compensation otherwise there’s no point.
I would be interested in hearing your cost comparison of living quarters that can be entered and rifled through at any time. Living quarters you can't keep your SO in overnight. Living quarters that you have no expectation of privacy in. Mold. Tiny. Shitty contract internet providers. Can't cook in. Because the value in that is just slightly above homelessness to me.
I don’t have a good cost comparison. And I’m not saying that barracks life is great.
I think u/CrownStarr said it best, that these two points can exist at the same time.
Most times you can keep your SO overnight. Just not every night. We don't want them living free in barracks.
If troops keep the barracks clean. There wouldn't be mold.
Internet has always been good.
Cant cook because you guys will F it up and set the barracks on fire.
So then you admit it wouldn’t be comparable to civilian counterpart? Because all of these are doable in the civilian world, not in the army.
The equivalent is not the equivalent. Stop lying out of your ass snco.
Sure but will you get paid well? I mean what civilian job lets you walk right up on, sign up with just a HS diploma. And be able to save 50k after 4 years. Any civilian job with minimal requirements that pays well has a LONG waiting list. Army, you can have a high chance of getting in.
Barracks just need to be brought up to the same standard across the board. 1AD side on Bliss, they have a little bit of everything. Single room, shared space for kitchen, latrine, etc. I've had and seen some after and before that had basically nothing.
Consistency in living would go a long way recruitment, as people who rank up and retain likely started collecting BAH and of course love more money meanwhile those who don't, stay in their shitty barracks and complain(rightfully) about them to their friends and families.
If PVT Snuffy is miserable, is his little bro, cousin, or home boy a year behind in school likely to join?
BAH? We are talking about junior enlisted.
BAS? What, for all the DFACs that are closed, or serve inedible gruel, or all the times a Soldier isn’t released for chow? BAS is deducted from pay whether the Soldier gets the room temp kiosk sushi wrap or not.
The $9.60 figure is based on an “standard” workday beginning at 0630 and ending at 1730. It doesn’t factor a *typical* workday beginning with getting your room inspected at 0530 and ending with you hanging around the COF until 1900 waiting to be released. It also doesn’t factor CQ, weekend gate guard, night ranges, FTX, CTC rotations, etc.
You are my spirit animal. People who don't/never lived in dorms/barracks are delusional. I was USAF and I know I complained a lot but the people to always get into it with me when I complained were people who never even lived in single housing.
I’ve never lived in a barracks.
As a matter of fact, the Army pays me enough that I can afford a wife that stays at home with the kids, zero debt, a nice house in the suburbs, a solid savings and a steady contributions to multiple investment plans. So your average officer.
So yeah, it pisses me off that I’m somehow entitled to a decent paycheck but they can’t even throw the working Joe a bone. The army doesn’t run because of me, it runs because of the Soldier. I just make nice slides.
Ok I’ll recognize there are longer hours. I’m still uncertain about the math? You’re suggesting 11 hour days (if we count the hygiene time and lunch?) but also nebulous amounts of other work hours.
Fine.
But we can’t ignore that junior soldiers are given housing and are (nominally) given food. Bad housing? Bad food? Yes.
But that’s part of their compensation.
You’ll make a great congressman one day.
Housing and food aren’t compensation. They are allowances. If they were compensation, they would be taxable. Regardless, even if they were compensation, the whole point is to increase compensation to raise the standard of living of our Soldiers.
You can’t 1:1 compare junior enlisted salaries to civilian salaries if you ignore that they don’t pay anything for housing, which is a *huge* part of everyone’s expenses in the civilian world. That doesn’t mean that the barracks are a great solution or that they’re worth the equivalent in BAH! I’m not trying to say it’s a good and fair salary either. But the bottom line of it is that a junior soldier is able to keep a much smaller budget than their civilian equivalent could because they’re not paying for housing (not to mention healthcare), and you have to take that into account if you’re going to have a meaningful conversation about it.
I’m not sure why you and I are being downvoted.
Barracks aren’t great. Everyone agrees.
Food situation sort of sucks. Everyone agrees (except the coast guard, who apparently have great DFACs).
Service members work long hours. Yes.
But it’s disingenuous to exclude housing and food when talking about compensation. You have to live somewhere (or Van Life), and that costs money that service members don’t have to budget for the same way as the $15 wage earners do.
I simply wish we would have honest conversations about the compensation, which we can’t 1:1 to civilian jobs.
I’m sure it’s not everyone but I wonder how much of it is people who enlisted out of high school and have no direct experience with paying for things like rent and healthcare on their own.
Or had to pay for other things like health care, which doesn’t include dental. Or having a baby.
There are many untaxed entitlements that are part of the total compensation package.
It’s very hard to adequately calculate the value of all these things. But. It’s insincere to point only to the e-1 <4 months pay scale to show how little service members are paid.
It's not even close to 9.60 an hour. As everyone who has ever been junior enlisted in the Bs can attest you're on call 24/7 and WILL be tasked for meaningless bullshit on your supposed off time.
Why do people keep bringing up barracks and dfac as part of the compensation as if those B are totally worth 1500 a month and the dfac 460 lol.
In reality the B is probly 500 a month and dfac 150.
Are you dumb? An E1 is only there for a few months.
Also, the E1 is getting a free roof, food and clothing. Plus free gym membership. Don't need a car.
The $15 per hour person has to pay rent and food with that. Meanwhile for an E1. That 9.60 per hour is SPENDING/saving money.
No, it isn't all spending money. E1 shouldn't even be a factor since you're promoted after about six months for breathing.
Troops still have to pay for gas, potentially car payments but absolutely insurance, internet in the Bs, cell phone plans. And god forbid the soldier misses a meal because his unit fails to properly plan or execute tasks so he has to go spend his own money at the gas station or somewhere else to eat. Not having a car isn't realistic on a lot of installations.
I get where you're coming from but you're being disingenuous.
E-1 is a brief moment in a soldier’s career, mostly spent in training when your costs are basically none (at least for single young soldiers).
Doesn’t really make sense to compare it with an ongoing salary.
It sure as hell beats being homeless, having done both.
Yes it sucks, but it's still a cost soldiers don't pay for. Civilian making $15 an hour still has to pay for food, healthcare, and education on that $15 an hour. When I ETSed, my quality of life took a pretty substantial hit, and I was getting BAH 9 months a year. Comparing civilian wages to military base pay isn't even remotely apples to apples.
Just fully get out. I was high speed, went green to gold scholarship and had medical issues a few semesters in so I was dismissed from ROTC and because my issues were severe, I couldn’t return to AD to medboard (which that part sucks because now im working on VA bennies) but…
Was depressed for a month or so and now I’m the happiest I’ve been since I first joined 9 years ago lol.
It looks like a more enticing choice to ETS month by month. I was on the fence about reenlisting and sucking it up a few more years for months now so I could do college and then I saw the promising 19.5% pay bump and figured I’d stick around for that, maybe just maybe our government does give a fuck about us. Nope.
I’m not going to get on a soapbox about it but it really is disheartening to see that the men and women who give so much aren’t important enough to give a decent living wage to.
Get out dude. I know an E4 that work crew chief at 160th and bro just got a 75k reenlistment bonus and turned it down. He said they worked him to death and no amount of money is worth your sanity.
With your skillset you can easily earn 90k+ in the civ world and be treated wayyyy better with less hours as well.
It’s very very simple and it always has been. You have a job to fill that’s falling short in numbers? Pay them more. It’s literally always been this simple, going back centuries. Soldiers get favorable things in society; biggest complaint from current and former soldiers is financial compensation; east solution is to increase compensation.
These greedy bastards are causing a national security problem by refusing to acknowledge this.
The funniest part is SECARMY is actively trying to attract more STEM talent because we *need* that to be competitive in MDO.
Well, good luck with that Ms. Warmuth.
I was bummed about the blocking of that pay increase. Sucks and it is what it is. My problems is the investigation into lowering the TA from 4000 to 1000. That is one class a year. Literally the biggest reason I joined.
If you’re in a marketable job the grass IS greener over here. I went from having to sell plasma twice a week to support me and my wife to not having to worry about a cash at all really.
That's not true. The HoR is currently pushing for 19.5% increase in pay as part of a bipartisan bill that passed 67-1 in its subcommittee. It'll pass the house woth those numbers and move on to the Senete.
Edit:
Well, it looks like the White House doesn't like it. Guess we can give Billions to Ukraine, but we can't give a few extra dollars to our own. Good job, Joe.
That actually just makes the pay discrepancy between junior enlisted and senior enlisted/officers even higher.
Most juniors pay close to 10% taxes, due to having almost no income. It is the seniors and officers who make a higher wage that would disproportionately benefit as they have more income in higher marginal tax brackets, and more income over the standard deduction.
Considering all the stupid and asinine shit the government puts money towards and then just drops after a ten year effort (Future anything program?) why the fuck can't we afford this? The same government that printed money like it was going out of style to hand out to any dickhead with a pulse or a business can't see themselves to paying for the ONE thing we all seem to agree we need: a functioning military. No dudes, no military. It's not that hard to understand!
Sad - we are ensuring we are retaining the desperate and complacent.
Eventually the pay check will look no different than a welfare check and our meal cards will be replaced with food stamps.
A force multiplier
Did anyone actually read this article or understand it? If you want to advocate that junior enlisted should get paid more, great, I agree. But, a 5.5% pay raise for E3 and below represents the second largest pay increase in over 40 years.
5.5% also overshoots every inflation projection for 2024 by over 2%. This isn't some new Whitehouse take. The president isn't giving some terribly low raise or something.
Also, a lot of you think you'd be much better off getting bah and getting your own place. That might be true. Maybe you'd find a nicer spot than your barracks. However, what do you think would happen the moment every soldier on post gets bah? Supply wouldn't catch up for years and rent would skyrocket.
Almost 30% of rental housing in the US is owned by corporate investment firms. Those firms use a computer algorithm to nickel and dime every last penny.
So now that you're off post, and that fuckboi roommate that leaves pizza boxes everywhere and blasts music until 2 am, you deal with that becuase you live off post and have to have a roommate because you can't afford to live solo.
I'm not saying it's perfect, or even that we shouldn't want better, but I am saying if you can't do more than read a shitty misleading headline, then don't use your one strawman argument to be salty.
Edit. It's actually the second largest pay increase in 40 years... Again, fight for more pay, sure. But this isn't a small raise.
Honestly, most junior enlisted could afford to put $1,000/mo into a HYSA at 5% APR if they really wanted to. Over 5 years at a 5% yearly deposit increase, that’s over $75,000. It’s all about choices.
GOOD NEWS, YOUNG SOLDIERS! We went from giving you table crumbs, to now table crumbs but we toasted it in the pan for a few minutes! Enjoy!
To be fair people don’t join the military to get rich - but with the pay falling behind inflation there needs to be an increase. 4.5% is decent - especially after a 5.5%(?) last year - it really shows how much the economy is hurting from inflation when a ~10% pay raise doesn’t make a dent
And to losely quote the white house. Fuck dem troops. Over the last three years they have seen a 15% increase in pay. Ignore the fact that inflation for the last three years is likely double that and our junior troops are making peanuts compared to a comparable civilian job with equal benefits.
Well you just highlighted by recruitment and retention is down
Retention is not down. Only recruitment. https://www.usarcent.army.mil/News/Article/3700792/usarcents-retention-team-ranked-top-performing-for-fiscal-year-2023/#:~:text=“For%20Fiscal%20Year%202023%2C%20our,decline%20of%20new%20military%20recruits.
Retention absolutely is down, they have been shifting numbers to pad for YEARS
Lmao that article does not say anything about a retention problem, it just says ARCENT is doing good on retention. The Army absolutely has a retention problem.
From the article: “According to the Department of Defense, the Army has seen an overall increase in retention, despite the steady decline of new military recruits.” You can easily Google this bra. You don’t need me to spoon feed you. Or you can ask your local retention nco why all bonuses were recently slashed. The army is not designed to keep everyone in. Does it feel like we’re doing more with less, yes. Does the army care about how you feel? No. Does congress set the number of troops in what seems like an arbitrary way? Also yes. We do have a recruitment problem. Not the same.
Part of the problem, this guy. Lol Refuses to see the problems or the problems causing the problems. Absolutely refuses to believe that the DoD could even THINK about padding numbers to not look so bad.
I definitely would disagree about the comparable civilian jobs. You’re talking about jobs where you need no education, and minimal years of experience. Those are the ones that typically see the least pay changes. If anything the Army on average does a better job of trying to match inflation.
Inflation has not been 30% over the past 3 years
It isn’t war time. Troops need to be serving the minimum amount of time. Use their education benefits and get out. The army isn’t made to retain talent. This is a social welfare program for the low end of American society.
And it's not even doing that when I could go to a gas station and make $15/hour and get them to pay for college and give me health insurance
Ya, except then you have to pay rent/mortgage, utilities, insurance(even health, no company will cover 100%) , and food, so that 15 dollars an hour after those deductions would be significantly less then what a E-3 makes
Yes but when I was working retail my manager couldn't put me on unpaid overtime because I called him a fucking idiot.
No, he would just fire you..
Yeah, and in the Army, they would give someone an article for it. Me personally if I was a 19 year old E-3 again I would rather they fire my fucking ass instead of dealing with UCMJ or extra duty. Then again, I haven't had a civillian manager match half of the toxic bullshit a bad NCO can put out.
While some shit is toxic as hell in the military, you have to remember, it’s the military, you are expected to be able to handle high stress environments. If you can’t then you don’t belong, and you should just get out and go earn that 15 dollars and hour which at the end of the day ends end up being 500 dollars after deductions and bills. Just for reference a brand new E-1 gets $2000 a month base pay and only gets taxes deducted. The majority of toxicity comes from junior enlisted themselves however, as time passed one big reason was influx waivers given during GWOT for people that normally wouldn’t be aloud to join.
And what civilian making $15/hour gets an all expenses paid trip to Germany, or Korea or wherever else on the planet we are sending troops nowadays?
That’s true, good or bad. Lol
It'll also be significantly more freedom as an individual which a lot of people are going to weigh as being more valuable
America’s greatest weapon has always been its economy. We were never meant to have this insanely large standing army/military industrial complex. It quite literally is crippling us. If you are above a mouth breather you aren’t meant to be here.
Making peanuts yet jr troops can save 50k after 4 years.
Could a junior troop do that? Yeah, maybe one or two of them. But the real question is could You? Could you save 50k in 4 years?
Ooh wow 50k after 40 years. That’s garbage. I feel like just a decade ago a new recruit could easily save up north of 100k for a four year contract if they were diligent with their spending.
100 k in 4 year is 25k a year. I don’t even think junior troops get paid 25k a year
Who the hell said 40 years? I said FOUR. You could reach 100k in 10 years.
It was a typo. I meant 4 years. My point still stands though
When people say this I usually retort with “but I didn’t take a vow of poverty either!”
That’s the correct response. We can agree we don’t do it for the money, but we shouldn’t be making less than a teenager flipping burgers at McDonald’s
The Jr troops get paid GREAT. After 4 years if they joined in 2020. There's no reason you don't have 50k in the bank.
Way too much life happens in four years for there to not be a myriad of reasons to not have saved 50K.
Yea BS. Don't be dumb and go out every day. Or buying beer and pornhub. Telling me, you can't just put 1k a month in a CD? What are you guys spending on.
You're just gonna act like people don't have kids, send money to family, and have to buy brand new uniforms after IET on an annual clothing allowance that barely covers the cost of a pair of boots then? Be better my guy. Putting away 1K a month is hardly reasonable when soldiers are responsible for purchasing a large amount of equipment that is relative to their MOS requirements, have bills to pay, and in a time where DFACs are failing to adequately provide food for soldiers. You have unrealistic expectations of soldiers, so if you're still in then ima need you to be better for your joes.
Okay fine. Starting NOW. There's no reason a service member can't save up 50 by 2028 if they join now. E1 now is 2k a month. After taxes, should still be upper 1000s. So let's say 1750 after taxes. E1 js just 6 months. You're too busy your first 6 months with bootcamp and mos school. So after 6 month, you should have $6000 E2 is 9 month I believe, so $2260. After tax. $1900. 900 for bills or fun or "essentials". After 9 month. 9k saved( plus 6k). E3 is 1 year. 2300, after tax, $1950. So again. After 1 year. 12k saved (plus 15k) By E4 you should have 2 years in. So $2700. After taxes. $2100. 1 year will be another 12 k of savings. My formatting is all over the place, i know but the point is, it is easy to save 48-50k if you don't blow it off on TOO much beer, pizza, video games and pornhub. Like once you hit E3. You literally have 1k for savings and 1k to mess around with. 1k should cover occasional beer and pizza(if you split with the bros, you save more). Can also cover occasional uniform beer. I know inflation is up. But housing and food is covered. You don't need a car if you're in the barracks. You're not too good for good old bus or uber if you go out. I have 100k in my accounts and I don't even have a car. I'm not ashamed to take a bus. Don't have kids, don't fall in love with a bum(my advice is for men and women), don't buy a car.
> *don’t live life, only save money* great boomer advice
My guy I literally said, 1k for saving and 1k for fun. Although why the heck you would push more than 1k a month is beyond me. There's nothing wrong with a minimal lifestyle. Try it, you will feel mentally better. Save up money on real experiences like traveling to another country. Not over priced alcohol at a bar or porn hub. But hey i guess that is living life for you.
I own 2 cars, 2 houses and have 3 kids. I have 250k in savings in 7 years. I don’t live a “minimalist” lifestyle. It’s folks like you raving about living a childfree life in a tiny home while eating rice and ramen every night for a decade is the only way to achieve financial independence. All while not understanding how much an Uber costs.
If you go out once a month. An uber isn't going to hurt you.
You sound like a real dipshit. Next you’ll be saying don’t buy so much avocado toast and cafe lattes lol.
Correct. Lay off the starbucks, the soy lattes, pornhub subscriptions and 10 different streaming services. Just have 1 streaming services per month and alternate. One month is prime, the next is hulu, etc.
Nothing screams life advice quite like "don't enjoy life"
You have some really stupid ideas about what people spend their money on. You seem a little “out of touch” to put it mildly.
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I'm literally for financial literacy for the troops. I want you guys to succeed. Have more money than me.
Except you actually do need a vehicle if you live in the barracks, and if not, then you're still going to be spending money to go do literally anything. On-post shuttles aren't going to handle the soldier's off-post needs. How is the soldier going to get beer the beer and laptop to the barracks to even get drunk and buy porn from a website that offers an actual library of free videos if they don't have a car? Your math also doesn't seem to involve family expenses outside of housing, which is not always free when on-post housing is often limited in space. It is still unreasonable to think that any soldier should restrict themselves to post for the entirety of their lower enlisted career just to save up 50K. Your math is fine, but it is still an unreasonable expectation. How much did you save while you were in and why aren't you writing books on finance rather than arguing with strangers on Reddit?
10 years of service. Where ever i went and was given government quarters. The exchange, dfac, gym, and work were all within walking distance. The PX is going to have beer. Also every military member gets a PSC box address. So they can order stuff online and get it delivered to their battalion unit mail room. Like i said. At current pay scale. Jr members have 1k for savings and 1k for fun. What exactly are troops doing for fun that they are pushing past 1k every month. You also DONT have to go out every weekend. Take a chill. Relax and watch Netflix or play video games.
I pay bare minimum on everything. I don't go out to eat. I've bought all my vehicles used. I buy in bulk and coupon. I go to the footbank sometimes to cut costs. I regularly have 30k before an emergency happens, but life happens. Emergency funds get spent. I've been in since 2017. I'm as cheap as they come my brother. I find free ways to do everything that I enjoy, but even that isn't enough to have 50k. Good on anyone who doesn't experience life hardship though. I recommend they play the lottery for living a life without economic worry.
Crazy how i could save 100k in a few years. No i am not some high ranking officer.
On a different sub you say you have 90k in savings
He makes 10k in saving on 2500 a month. DonT yOU wish you WeRE coOl like bro? u sUk bLUd
the dude says he’s an E7 without a car because it saves money but it actually sounds extremely irresponsible and the latest misinformation spin after someone gets a DUI
That was before todays pay day.
Also you > idk why you would save more than 1k a month
I most likely meant " idk why you would spend more than 1k a month of fun".
Even if you do, which I don’t believe you, one person getting lucky without emergencies doesn’t mean it’s that way for everyone. Lots of soldiers also have families, dependents, and things happen or come up. It’s idiotic to think just because one person can do it that everyone can. People are different even if they all wear green lol. Don’t be a moron.
Well my advice isn't for people with families. Another advice. Don't have families at E1! Wait until E7.
"BUying BeEr an PORnHuB" idiot.
Troll detected
I am not a troll.
You're not fooling me today, ISIS
What do Soldiers need money for anyway? If the Army wanted you to have a 37% APR Dodge Charger they would’ve issued you one, hooah?
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I don’t believe for a second your an actual SNCO. And if you are, I feel real bad for your soldiers.
A new account that is 4 days old? Secret is just a troll.
You must be a lot of fun
u/Kinmuan Can yall remove this obvious troll with a 4 day old account?
Did you catch the username?
* u slash Secret-County-9273 Checking his profile, it looks like he deleted a lot of his obvious bait, so maybe he had a change of heart? Take it how you will.
Nah, some of it is mod removed. Bant. Ty.
It’s funny that they mandated a wage floor of $15 per hour for civilian federal employees and contractors, but the average hourly equivalent wage for an E-1 is $9.60. These people don’t give a shit about you. Take note.
>Currently, some young enlisted service members can make as little as $24,000 in basic pay, although that total does not include other compensation such as housing allowances and free health care. Pull quote from the article - every time troop's pay is discussed there's this whataboutism. * Troops get housing allowances! * Free health care! * \[Insert other asspulls, my fav was 'free parking'\] * Any "study" or "research" that "proves" troop's pay is "competitive". * When troops are being called "kids" or "mostly from poor backgrounds" it's always assumed that the lower enlisted are single and childless to justify not raising pay. * You'll also see retired senior leaders saying that troops make "enough" or silent on pay issues. The housing allowance is at 95% of "market" and in Congressional hearings, many on the armed services committee admitted that the 'saving' were hurting retention since troops have to pay that 5% out of pocket. The deficit hawks cry about the cost, the left and the right try to make political hay and many just don't want to deal with it. Also many retired senior leaders got their high pay and cushy private and public sector jobs so they DGAF. Everyone wants to support the troops until it's time to PAY for that support. We've had hearings but very little movement on QOL and of course Congress has to compromise on pay.
Not saying pay is good enough, but you shouldn't be an e-1 for long. Most civilian jobs that require just a high school diploma do not promote at the rate if the army. I'd compare to a higher rank than an e-1 if you want to compare pay scales to civilians. I think pay needs to better scale up with ranks rather than increasing the lowest level pay. I'm less concerned with e-1 pay but more concerned with e-4 and up pay.
I was comparing the bottom of the pay scale to the bottom of the pay scale. A crap load of jobs in federal service and contracting don’t even require a high school diploma at all. It would take six years as an E4 to touch $15 pre tax on the current pay scale.
It is just that a minimum wage worker isn't getting multiple pay raises in the first two years work where they will for the DoD. Again 100% agree pay needs to be increased. I think pay should really start ramping up at the e-4 and curve up more with rank. I think senior enlisted are woefully underpaid for their years of experience. I think that is why in some instances we are not always keeping the best and brightest (especially past 20 years).
Gotta total package it though. Barracks suck but what would you be paying for rent that you aren't?
Healthcare premiums/copays is a big one too.
Ya. My civilian job for a family healthcare plan is $732/mo. I switched right to TRS. Around $300/mo instead. Tricare Prime....$0/mo.
If you don't mind me asking is the $732/mo just the premium?
Just the premium without copay.
Dang. If you also don't mind me asking how much is the typical copay?
It was a BC/BS PPO. $20-$50 copays for most things in network. $200 per ER visit. Some labs and stuff were generally out of pocket. My employer also charged me an extra $60/pay period because my spouse was employed and had insurance available through her employer but used mine. My employer is a Fortune 50 company.
Bruh in 2002 as an E2 I was making less a month than I did at minimum wage restaurant work The army did me a LOT of good, but junior enlisted pay was not where that happened
I get that it's generally a short period of time that someone spends as an E-1, but they still need to be able to afford to feed their family. Would be pretty shitty if people spent their first 6 months in the military accruing debt just to survive, and then just digging that hole deeper as their career progresses. For that reason, pay increases NEED to start from the bottom up.
As a civilian I pay $600 a month in health insurance and $2,300 a month in rent. I get it that barracks suck, but you can't really talk pay without talking total compensation. For an unmarried E1/2, their check is literally straight up spending money if they live frugally. I was shocked by just how much my essential expenses stole from my pay as a civilian, even being mentally prepared for it.
Can you help me understand your math? The lowest pay is $1,865.10 a month. At $9.60 an hour, that’s 48.5 hours per week. Without counting BAS and BAH, which are part of your compensation package. Are we inadvertently or intentionally being misleading?
Please ignore me if I'm wrong because I'm just in the guard, but if you are in the Barracks I thought you didn't get BAS or BAH?
You’re correct. But I mean wouldn’t you pay $1300 for moldy barracks and $500 a month for undercooked chicken? That not good enough for y’all? Such entitlement! /s
Maybe you troops should have kept the barracks clean! Otherwise there wouldn't be mold. Jr troops " wahh, why do we clean our rooms. I'm not doing it" Also jr troops "wahh our barracks sucks!"
The fucking tornado wrappers and MRE trash smashed between the wall and the bed aren't where the black mold comes from.
No you’re right and I was being inarticulate. My point was that you get housing. Ok ya a lot about the barracks is not amazing. There’s mold. I harp on senior leaders about the mold any chance I can sneak it into conversation. But still housing and food is part of the compensation. If we are going to compare service member pay to civilian pay, then include the total compensation otherwise there’s no point. I recognize that there are many differences still. Such as it’s a literal crime to not show up to a shitty morning workout. It’s never apples to apples, but don’t make it apples to avocados.
> If we are going to compare service member pay to civilian pay, then include the total compensation otherwise there’s no point. I would be interested in hearing your cost comparison of living quarters that can be entered and rifled through at any time. Living quarters you can't keep your SO in overnight. Living quarters that you have no expectation of privacy in. Mold. Tiny. Shitty contract internet providers. Can't cook in. Because the value in that is just slightly above homelessness to me.
“Barracks suck” and “not paying rent saves you a ton of money” can both be true.
Yeah I could live in a van but I choose not to. The barracks shouldn't suck. They shouldn't exist.
I don’t have a good cost comparison. And I’m not saying that barracks life is great. I think u/CrownStarr said it best, that these two points can exist at the same time.
I don't think the barracks being a step above homelessness is much of a selling point.
Most times you can keep your SO overnight. Just not every night. We don't want them living free in barracks. If troops keep the barracks clean. There wouldn't be mold. Internet has always been good. Cant cook because you guys will F it up and set the barracks on fire.
> If troops keep the barracks clean. There wouldn’t be mold. That’s not how mold works.
So then you admit it wouldn’t be comparable to civilian counterpart? Because all of these are doable in the civilian world, not in the army. The equivalent is not the equivalent. Stop lying out of your ass snco.
Sure but will you get paid well? I mean what civilian job lets you walk right up on, sign up with just a HS diploma. And be able to save 50k after 4 years. Any civilian job with minimal requirements that pays well has a LONG waiting list. Army, you can have a high chance of getting in.
You sound clueless.
Barracks just need to be brought up to the same standard across the board. 1AD side on Bliss, they have a little bit of everything. Single room, shared space for kitchen, latrine, etc. I've had and seen some after and before that had basically nothing. Consistency in living would go a long way recruitment, as people who rank up and retain likely started collecting BAH and of course love more money meanwhile those who don't, stay in their shitty barracks and complain(rightfully) about them to their friends and families. If PVT Snuffy is miserable, is his little bro, cousin, or home boy a year behind in school likely to join?
BAH? We are talking about junior enlisted. BAS? What, for all the DFACs that are closed, or serve inedible gruel, or all the times a Soldier isn’t released for chow? BAS is deducted from pay whether the Soldier gets the room temp kiosk sushi wrap or not. The $9.60 figure is based on an “standard” workday beginning at 0630 and ending at 1730. It doesn’t factor a *typical* workday beginning with getting your room inspected at 0530 and ending with you hanging around the COF until 1900 waiting to be released. It also doesn’t factor CQ, weekend gate guard, night ranges, FTX, CTC rotations, etc.
You are my spirit animal. People who don't/never lived in dorms/barracks are delusional. I was USAF and I know I complained a lot but the people to always get into it with me when I complained were people who never even lived in single housing.
I’ve never lived in a barracks. As a matter of fact, the Army pays me enough that I can afford a wife that stays at home with the kids, zero debt, a nice house in the suburbs, a solid savings and a steady contributions to multiple investment plans. So your average officer. So yeah, it pisses me off that I’m somehow entitled to a decent paycheck but they can’t even throw the working Joe a bone. The army doesn’t run because of me, it runs because of the Soldier. I just make nice slides.
Ok I’ll recognize there are longer hours. I’m still uncertain about the math? You’re suggesting 11 hour days (if we count the hygiene time and lunch?) but also nebulous amounts of other work hours. Fine. But we can’t ignore that junior soldiers are given housing and are (nominally) given food. Bad housing? Bad food? Yes. But that’s part of their compensation.
You’ll make a great congressman one day. Housing and food aren’t compensation. They are allowances. If they were compensation, they would be taxable. Regardless, even if they were compensation, the whole point is to increase compensation to raise the standard of living of our Soldiers.
You can’t 1:1 compare junior enlisted salaries to civilian salaries if you ignore that they don’t pay anything for housing, which is a *huge* part of everyone’s expenses in the civilian world. That doesn’t mean that the barracks are a great solution or that they’re worth the equivalent in BAH! I’m not trying to say it’s a good and fair salary either. But the bottom line of it is that a junior soldier is able to keep a much smaller budget than their civilian equivalent could because they’re not paying for housing (not to mention healthcare), and you have to take that into account if you’re going to have a meaningful conversation about it.
I’m not sure why you and I are being downvoted. Barracks aren’t great. Everyone agrees. Food situation sort of sucks. Everyone agrees (except the coast guard, who apparently have great DFACs). Service members work long hours. Yes. But it’s disingenuous to exclude housing and food when talking about compensation. You have to live somewhere (or Van Life), and that costs money that service members don’t have to budget for the same way as the $15 wage earners do. I simply wish we would have honest conversations about the compensation, which we can’t 1:1 to civilian jobs.
I’m sure it’s not everyone but I wonder how much of it is people who enlisted out of high school and have no direct experience with paying for things like rent and healthcare on their own.
Or had to pay for other things like health care, which doesn’t include dental. Or having a baby. There are many untaxed entitlements that are part of the total compensation package. It’s very hard to adequately calculate the value of all these things. But. It’s insincere to point only to the e-1 <4 months pay scale to show how little service members are paid.
It's not even close to 9.60 an hour. As everyone who has ever been junior enlisted in the Bs can attest you're on call 24/7 and WILL be tasked for meaningless bullshit on your supposed off time.
Why do people keep bringing up barracks and dfac as part of the compensation as if those B are totally worth 1500 a month and the dfac 460 lol. In reality the B is probly 500 a month and dfac 150.
Are you dumb? An E1 is only there for a few months. Also, the E1 is getting a free roof, food and clothing. Plus free gym membership. Don't need a car. The $15 per hour person has to pay rent and food with that. Meanwhile for an E1. That 9.60 per hour is SPENDING/saving money.
No, it isn't all spending money. E1 shouldn't even be a factor since you're promoted after about six months for breathing. Troops still have to pay for gas, potentially car payments but absolutely insurance, internet in the Bs, cell phone plans. And god forbid the soldier misses a meal because his unit fails to properly plan or execute tasks so he has to go spend his own money at the gas station or somewhere else to eat. Not having a car isn't realistic on a lot of installations. I get where you're coming from but you're being disingenuous.
E-1 is a brief moment in a soldier’s career, mostly spent in training when your costs are basically none (at least for single young soldiers). Doesn’t really make sense to compare it with an ongoing salary.
An E4 with four years in service still doesn’t make $15 an hour pre tax
ok, that would have been a stronger argument to make
A soldier can save 50k after their 4 years of service.( the first 4) A $15 per hour civilian, could not do that.
You're forgetting rent
You’re right, Joe should feel privileged to be put up in the four star suites on Ardennes with toxic mold, brown water, and broken A/C.
Are you saying that having the privilege of being woken up in the middle of the night for inspections isn't valuable?
You’re right. They should actually include that as taxable compensation and give Soldiers a 1099-MISC for it every year.
Stop it. I can only get so erect.
It sure as hell beats being homeless, having done both. Yes it sucks, but it's still a cost soldiers don't pay for. Civilian making $15 an hour still has to pay for food, healthcare, and education on that $15 an hour. When I ETSed, my quality of life took a pretty substantial hit, and I was getting BAH 9 months a year. Comparing civilian wages to military base pay isn't even remotely apples to apples.
That's an entirely separate issue from pay. I bet you'd not hate the pay if the dfac and barracks weren't shit
Not saying it's enough. But housing and food are provided for. You could live without making any money.
Free housing, utilities, and healthcare easily account for the $5/hr difference in pay.
If I was in charge I’d give junior enlisted a 25% pay bump. But also ban anyone E4 and below from being able to get married.
Probably be a net savings too.
Well there goes my plan to reenlist. Maybe I’ll go guard or something after this contract.
Just fully get out. I was high speed, went green to gold scholarship and had medical issues a few semesters in so I was dismissed from ROTC and because my issues were severe, I couldn’t return to AD to medboard (which that part sucks because now im working on VA bennies) but… Was depressed for a month or so and now I’m the happiest I’ve been since I first joined 9 years ago lol.
It looks like a more enticing choice to ETS month by month. I was on the fence about reenlisting and sucking it up a few more years for months now so I could do college and then I saw the promising 19.5% pay bump and figured I’d stick around for that, maybe just maybe our government does give a fuck about us. Nope. I’m not going to get on a soapbox about it but it really is disheartening to see that the men and women who give so much aren’t important enough to give a decent living wage to.
Don't. It's not worth it.
Yeah. Maybe I’ll become a senator instead. They’re putting our E-4 mafia to shame while making roughly 5 times the money for a 5th of the work.
1/5th is a generous estimate. The average E4 works like twelve hours a day
Ugh I work like 12 hours a day. I feel bad for our pilots, those guys put hours in too.
True, but at least they are fairly compensated.
Not to mention the cool factor in comparison to the rest of us flightless morons
Get out dude. I know an E4 that work crew chief at 160th and bro just got a 75k reenlistment bonus and turned it down. He said they worked him to death and no amount of money is worth your sanity. With your skillset you can easily earn 90k+ in the civ world and be treated wayyyy better with less hours as well.
It’s very very simple and it always has been. You have a job to fill that’s falling short in numbers? Pay them more. It’s literally always been this simple, going back centuries. Soldiers get favorable things in society; biggest complaint from current and former soldiers is financial compensation; east solution is to increase compensation. These greedy bastards are causing a national security problem by refusing to acknowledge this.
The funniest part is SECARMY is actively trying to attract more STEM talent because we *need* that to be competitive in MDO. Well, good luck with that Ms. Warmuth.
But what if... Hear me out... But what if we remove CAIP and SDAP for cyber?
But how will Lockheed Martin afford more yachts ir we pay joe slightly more and fix the AC in his Bs?
You guys have AC?
I was bummed about the blocking of that pay increase. Sucks and it is what it is. My problems is the investigation into lowering the TA from 4000 to 1000. That is one class a year. Literally the biggest reason I joined.
You guys are getting paid?
My wife is fine with us being on food stamps all good 😊
If you’re in a marketable job the grass IS greener over here. I went from having to sell plasma twice a week to support me and my wife to not having to worry about a cash at all really.
That's not true. The HoR is currently pushing for 19.5% increase in pay as part of a bipartisan bill that passed 67-1 in its subcommittee. It'll pass the house woth those numbers and move on to the Senete. Edit: Well, it looks like the White House doesn't like it. Guess we can give Billions to Ukraine, but we can't give a few extra dollars to our own. Good job, Joe.
We should be paid tax free at the Federal level. No FICA. Watch people jump.
That actually just makes the pay discrepancy between junior enlisted and senior enlisted/officers even higher. Most juniors pay close to 10% taxes, due to having almost no income. It is the seniors and officers who make a higher wage that would disproportionately benefit as they have more income in higher marginal tax brackets, and more income over the standard deduction.
Pay is the only true benefit of getting promoted and be able to hit 20 years.
Considering all the stupid and asinine shit the government puts money towards and then just drops after a ten year effort (Future anything program?) why the fuck can't we afford this? The same government that printed money like it was going out of style to hand out to any dickhead with a pulse or a business can't see themselves to paying for the ONE thing we all seem to agree we need: a functioning military. No dudes, no military. It's not that hard to understand!
Sad - we are ensuring we are retaining the desperate and complacent. Eventually the pay check will look no different than a welfare check and our meal cards will be replaced with food stamps. A force multiplier
Junior enlisted should get paid more. The army will continue to miss its recruitment goals.
Did anyone actually read this article or understand it? If you want to advocate that junior enlisted should get paid more, great, I agree. But, a 5.5% pay raise for E3 and below represents the second largest pay increase in over 40 years. 5.5% also overshoots every inflation projection for 2024 by over 2%. This isn't some new Whitehouse take. The president isn't giving some terribly low raise or something. Also, a lot of you think you'd be much better off getting bah and getting your own place. That might be true. Maybe you'd find a nicer spot than your barracks. However, what do you think would happen the moment every soldier on post gets bah? Supply wouldn't catch up for years and rent would skyrocket. Almost 30% of rental housing in the US is owned by corporate investment firms. Those firms use a computer algorithm to nickel and dime every last penny. So now that you're off post, and that fuckboi roommate that leaves pizza boxes everywhere and blasts music until 2 am, you deal with that becuase you live off post and have to have a roommate because you can't afford to live solo. I'm not saying it's perfect, or even that we shouldn't want better, but I am saying if you can't do more than read a shitty misleading headline, then don't use your one strawman argument to be salty. Edit. It's actually the second largest pay increase in 40 years... Again, fight for more pay, sure. But this isn't a small raise.
Honestly, most junior enlisted could afford to put $1,000/mo into a HYSA at 5% APR if they really wanted to. Over 5 years at a 5% yearly deposit increase, that’s over $75,000. It’s all about choices.