CBO: Pay gap in military no longer exists

Above: A soldier from Alpha Company, 4th Brigade, Special Troops Battalion, probes for a mine at a suspected site near the village of Tangay, Afghanistan on June 7.

A new congressional report appears to undercut efforts in Congress to approve bigger military pay raises by concluding that the “gap” between military and civilian pay, which lawmakers are trying to close, no longer exists.

The report, released Friday by the Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan analytical arm of Congress, is not really a surprise. Budget analysts for Congress, the White House and the Pentagon have claimed for years that the pay gap — measured by comparing military and private-sector wage growth over the past two decades — is a flawed and inadequate way to measure military compensation because it counts only basic pay, which is only a small part of the direct and indirect compensation received by service members.

Basic pay, food and housing allowances, and the monetary advantage that derives from the fact that both of those allowances are tax-free, resulted in a 21 percent boost in total compensation for the average enlisted member over the past six years, according to the CBO report. And that doesn’t include the value of deferred compensation, such as retired pay and health benefits for retirees and their families, or the value of noncash fringe benefits, such as subsidized on-base shopping, child care and other community services, the report says.

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