In just a few weeks, the Military Compensation and Retirement Modernization Commission is due to release its final recommendations for updating the military’s pay and retirement systems, which have remained virtually frozen for decades.
That has sparked anxiety among troops, veterans, their families and advocates, because that bombshell will drop at a time when interest in, and support for, increases in military compensation continues to soften in Congress and the Pentagon — reflected in the fact that troops are getting a second straight year of the smallest basic pay raises since the early ’70s.
The last time top policy officials sought to shortchange troops on their compensation, in the late 1980s and early ’90s, it led to a severe morale crisis that hobbled recruiting and retention for years in the late 1990s and required years of effort and billions of dollars to fix.
With that in mind, here are a few findings to ponder from the input provided by the 2,300 career-oriented active-duty personnel who responded to the annual Military Times survey:
■In 2009, 87 percent of troops rated their military pay and allowances as “good” or “excellent.” In the most recent 2014 survey, that figure had plunged to 44 percent.
■Asked to rate their quality of life, 91 percent said “good” or “excellent” in 2009. The 2014 figure: 56 percent.
■Seven in 10 troops expect things to get worse on those two counts in the coming years.
With that kind of sourness stirring in the ranks, what the commission recommends may well determine whether we return to days when military compensation was inexcusably allowed to slide — and recruiting and retention soon followed.
