Military retirement system broken, board says

stripes ^ | August 7, 2010 | By Lisa M. Novak

[ConorMacNessa]

Our men and women in the military put their lives on the line every day - how dare those sons of bitches mess with our military retirement! Damn them all to Hell!

Lamh Foistenach Abu!

[CodeToad]

Obama spends the entire military retirement costs in, what, 23 hours?

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

The current system “encourages our military to leave at 20 years when they are most productive and experienced, and then pays them and their families and their survivors for another 40 years," committee chairman Arnold Punaro told board members at their quarterly meeting late last month.

BS you are not "encouraged" to leave. You are forced out unless you make a certain rank. There are "gates" for both enlisted and officer that you MUST make before they will allow you to stay.

If there happen to be no promotion slots for you then you are forced out.

We can also talk about the death rate for those who go to thirty as opposed to twenty. So let me recap.

They propose....

Raising the age when you get a pension so they can force you out early so you don't get a pension or, if you make it to thirty, you die early so they don't have to pay your pension very long. Gee, I can just see the long line of career service people lining up for this one!

[xzins]

The objective is to steal earned benefits so they can transfer that cash to those who have unearned entitlements. A bad deal for America.

[Vineyard]

Minor edits/corrections ...

Survivor Benefit Program ...costs about 10%, and the spouse gets 50% when the member passes. If the spouse dies first - the pay that is 90% stays at 90% ...and if the member re-marries, after 1 year, the new spouse is eligible for SBP.

In the “old days” - a retired officer could only draw $8K of retirement pay if working for the Federal Government. That changed about 10 years ago (or more) ...they can now draw full military retired pay AND work for the US government.

And the military retirement system doesn’t do much for those who stay for 5 or 10 years ...no “vesting”, no benefits, nothing! And as noted - the percentage of those who start serving and make it to retirement is very low.
And contrast the benefits the military gets to those of Federal Civilian Police/Air Traffic Controllers, etc.!

And as noted - it is 2 1/2% per year served of BASE PAY only - unlike some state and local government retirement systems that might allow 3% of the last years salary (including overtime, unused vacation, sick leave sold back, etc.!!!)

Military retirement is earned - and it is no where as costly as many other retirement programs! The last time they tinkered with it ...(dropping the benefit to 2% per year, and other tweaks, the military had big time retention problems, and they had to essentially restore the essence of the original system. If they tweak it again, I would expect the same results!

Mike

[Redleg Duke]

Yes. Every time that I look at the long scar on my knee where the total replacement took place, courtesy of too many years, pushing my body when it shouldn't have been, I don't feel a bit guilty about the pittance that I get for 32 years of service.

And I realize that I am one of the lucky ones.