The demographic values used for comparison do not fully identify similar groups, between the military and civilian sectors. Neither age nor age and education combined do it. At a minimum "years of service" vs "years employed in the same career" need to be used. But, the comparison is not made and it's likely that good data for it is available only on the military side.
I guess, given when these latest military raises began, one can maybe say either "it's Bush's fault" or "Thank you George W. Bush", depending on your perspective.
IMO the only important part of this article is that they are going to try and reduce pay/benefits for the military.
This is the reality that all authors while talking about military compensation.
Military members, almost regardless of their military specialties write an dated check to the Republic. it is for all of their futures. Sometimes that check is cashed in a “training accident”; sometimes in combat, sometimes there is a partial refund (WIA instead of KIA), and worse of all the military member pays but the check isn't cashed (MIA).
I first wrote my personal check in 1969 and the government held it until 1990. I was lucky, I got the check back uncashed. Too many of my friends and students didn't get theirs back.
Well if they aren’t, they should be.
Today’s military is a “smart” military, and smart people don’t come cheap.
I wonder if a part of these increases counted include “combat pay,” given the fact that we’ve had men and women in harms way for the last 11 years.
It sounds like the government is looking to cut enlisted pay, while trying to come up with increased compensation for welfare queens and illegal aliens.
Mark
If they are not in a war zone, then a pay scale comparison of "military lawyer" versus "civilian lawyer", or a "military chef" versus a "civilian chef" would be more valid.
These kind of comparisons make me sick. What private sector jobs even come close the requirement to place one’s life on the line? In many cases, our military personnel have had multiple tours in Iraq/Afghanistan, many coming home wounded, leaving families behind, etc. These kind of stories imply that they don’t EARN the higher pay. No, they do earn it and then some.
I too agree with the quoted Marine. He is spot on.
Liberals like to lump a lot of things into the equation to show how overcompensated the military is.
And this is definitely a movement to prepare the turf to cut the budget even further.
Damn them all, damn them to hell. This is the 1930’s again. Just go ahead and cut the military, and pollute it with social experiments to turn it into a jobs program. Just watch and see what happens when we get into a shooting war.
Damn this makes me madder than a hornet.
In the Marine Corps Infantry, about the top 30% of enlisted earn E-4 shortly before the end of a four year tour. E-3, over two years, pay is currently $1868/Mo.
If we consider the average of 60 hour weeks worked, this is equivalent to a civilian working the same hours at $6.15/hr, less than minimum wage. Getting sent to a combat zone runs the hours worked through the roof. Blackwater, for instance, has to pay $150k/yr with full room and board to get civilians to do the same thing.
Civilian work is not comparable to military SERVICE, and the good men and women to SERVE our country, generally, do not do it for money.
SENTINEL=Former USMC SGT
well, according to the military pay table for 2012, you have to be an E-7 over 16 years to make the kind of money they describe...
Or an O-5 over 14 years to make the kind of money they describe....
what a crock of an article this is.. just an attempt to get support to reduce pay..
I was in the navy in 1962 making $250 every other week stationed on a ship as a doctor and was selected to be part of the invasion of Cuba during the Cuban Crisis and practiced climbing down a debark net into a pitching LCVP (poppa boat. “Great fun”.
For officers, average RMC was $94,735 in 2009. That was “88 percent higher than earnings of civilians with bachelor’s degrees, and 47 percent higher than earnings of those with graduate-level degrees,” the report says.
LOL! What a joke. A LT with a bachelor’s degree first has to gain admission to naval flight training (think top 3% of applicants) and then has an additional 1 1/2 to 2 years of astonishingly tough training to become an aviator or naval flight officer. After that they have another 3-4 years to become an aircraft commander or mission commander, responsible for a $200M aircraft, the lives of their crew, and the custody and use of weapons. I think a JG or LT making $90K all told versus an unemployed loser with a “BA in Social Thought” living in his mom’s basement means the officer is underpaid.
To me it sounds like happenstance. Military personnel got a much needed and long overdue series of pay hikes. It wasn’t *anybody’s* fault that civilian employment and salaries went in the crapper. Also explains high re-enlistment rates and competition to get in, despite all of the problems this regime has foisted upon them. The only way to save them is to throw these thugs out.
They stood up for us. Will we stand up for them?
Sure, I'm getting ready for a seven month deployment but most of the time I spend at home working 12 hour days four days a week. In an hour I'll be off of work for the holiday and I don't have to report back until Monday. All of it "liberty" (not counted against the 30 days leave I get each year). Not a bad gig at all these days.
del is is considerably better than the $68.00 a month that I enlisted for, and I think that is about $28.00 a month more than the men who fought WW II received.
Using an E-6 with time in grade of $58,000 with BAH and BAS (gross), let's see what the hourly pay is: $58,000/24/365 = $6.62 per hour. That's 87% of minimum wage.
Plus, you have the added bonus of getting shot at, and bombed...not to mention disease, stress, and various other sh@t.
Ok, the G.I. bill kinda makes up for that...
5.56mm
PS,..what’s a civiliam?
Let’s outsource it. Cheap labor solves everything. /sarc