(Army Times) Editorial: Continue closing pay gap

[unhappycamper]

Continue closing pay gap

President Barack Obama’s first defense budget calls for a military pay raise of 2.9 percent next year, which sounds generous when many Americans are losing jobs.

But that proposal, if left to stand, would mark the first time since 2000 that the annual military raise would not outpace average civilian wage growth.

Congress began its string of above-average military pay increases because the gap between military and civilian pay had grown to 13.5 percent, the highest level since 1982, when the second of two huge military raises under President Ronald Reagan last established rough parity.

For the past 10 years, raises have helped reverse a late-’90s hemorrhage of experienced troops and weather the challenge of finding and keeping enough qualified people to fight two wars.

Defense officials argue that matching civilian wage growth is now sufficient. The total military compensation package, they say, is very competitive with the private sector — and besides, the military doesn’t have to pay as much to attract and keep people in a job market as bleak as this.


Rest of article at: http://armytimes.com/community/opinion/army_editorial_pay_031609/%2e