US and UK Military Pay News

Been a Busy Pay Day

March 31st, 2009

Today has been a busy do for those of us that try and keep up with all the pay issues that come up.

Today was a big day in the United Kingdom as their government announced it accepted the recommendation of the Armed Forces’ Pay Review Body of 2.8% basic military salary increase for officers and all other ranks. The pay raise will take effect April 1, 2009.

Here in the United States, our Senate Armed Services Committee (ASC) agreed with the House’s ASC proposal of a 3.4 percent increase in military pay for 2010. The proposal is a half percentage point above President Obama’s input and follows the actions of congress over the past few years. The congressional increases have been in an effort to bring military pay in line with the civilian sector.

Due to the 30 year high year tenure (HYT) the 2010 pay increase will mark the last increase for most who enlisted in the Navy under the “final pay” retirement plan. (The few stragglers who joined DEP prior to the infamous Sept 1980 date and shipped in 1981, you still have one more )

Currently, President Obama has proposed government civilian workers would receive a 2 percent pay increase for 2010. For many years federal employees have experienced the same percentage increase as those in the military and when the President announced the variance this year many federal employees have been voicing their displeasure – now that the military raise has been proposed even higher I expect all hell to break loose.