Senate panel backs 1 percent pay increase (for military)

[nitpicker]

http://www.navytimes.com/article/20140715/NEWS05/307150057/Senate-panel-backs-1-percent-pay-increase

Senate panel backs 1 percent pay increase
Jul. 15, 2014 - 02:27PM
By Leo Shane III
Staff writer


Senate appropriators plan to fund only a 1 percent basic pay raise for troops next year and will go along with a Pentagon proposal to trim housing allowances in an effort to rein in personnel costs.

The moves, if adopted later this week, leave troops and families with a mixed message from lawmakers about how much belt tightening they’ll see next year.
(snip)

The Senate’s 1 percent raise proposal mirrors White House requests for a modest pay increase, a move that would save $3.8 billion over five years. Earlier this year, the Senate Armed Services Committee included the same capped pay raise in its draft of the annual defense authorization bill.

Senators said the move, while difficult, will help free up funds for other priorities without cutting too deeply into troops’ wallets.

But House appropriators in June funded a 1.8 percent pay raise, in line with increases in private-sector wages. The chamber also approved its draft of the defense authorization bill in May with language backing the 1.8 percent increase, although without any provisions to actually mandate the higher figure.

(snip)
Military officials also have lobbied to trim troops’ housing allowances, scaling back from covering 100 percent of average housing costs to 95 percent in coming years, with troops expected to cover that average 5 percent out of their own pockets. Senate appropriators backed that plan, again mirroring their Senate Armed Services Committee counterparts. But the House has twice rejected the idea.

(snip)

[Live and Learn]

1. What a slap in the face to our military. nt

[msongs]

2. everybody shares the good times and everybody shares the bad time...except the 1% nt