The House Appropriations Committee is looking into minimum wage salaries for all service members. As part of the proposed FY 2022 Defense Budget Bill, Representative Mike Garcia introduced language that would ensure all service members have a base pay of about $15 an hour. This would be for a 40-hour day estimation. We know as military family members that the work week is often much more than 40 hours, and much longer when they are deployed on a ship or overseas.
Base pay for military members is just that, base pay. The base pay does not consider Basic Allowance for Subsistence (BAS) or Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) which is provided as a means to offset the service members’ meals and housing respectively. When these figures are included, plus special and incentive pays like flying duty, parachuting duty, or diving duty, the total pay for service members is higher. However, according to Representative Garcia, past studies from the Government Accountability Office indicate that over 20,000 military families qualify for food stamp assistance. Given this large number of families needing assistance, Representative Garcia stated “If the government is paying for these service members to be on food stamps, we may as well be paying them through the base pay or sustenance allowance on the front end.”
The debate among the committee included concern that the verbiage of the increased hourly rate of $15 would have to include contractor employees as well as active duty military. The House Armed Services Committee members have pledged to hold discussions on the pay matter in the future. There is no current timeline for discussions.
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The House Armed Services Committee needs to go to work without delay on their discussion to make this a reality. Current base pay for an E1 is $1733.10. (about $10.83 an hour). Bringing their base pay to $15 would provide about $660 a month for a much needed and well deserved increase. It’s a shame that welfare programs actually encourage able individuals not to work, yet volunteers serving our nation are compensented so little. Fixing this situation is far overdue. Get it done..