Guest Blogged by Arlen Parsa
{Ed Note: An error in this report was later discovered while working on a follow-up to it. The illegality of the Bush military pay raise proposal as described in the report below, is based on a 1999 law which phased out the pay formula that Bush failed to meet, by fiscal year 2008. Lawmakers are in the process of restoring that provision, even while another law also keeps the legality of Bush’s proposal in doubt. The full details and explanation for the error, after combing through a soup of defense authorization provisions, are explained in our follow up report. The BRAD BLOG regrets the error.}
Recently the Bush Administration and Democratically-controlled Congress were at odds over how much to pay US soldiers serving in the most dangerous places in the world: Iraq and Afghanistan. Congress said that the troops should get a raise of 3.5%, while the Administration said any raise higher than 3% was not deserved. Administration officials even bluntly said the White House “strongly opposes” giving the troops that extra 0.5%.
Although Democrats have been arguing for the 3.5% raise, what neither they, nor any news organization seems to have thus far noticed, is that the Administration’s meager compensation plan would be, in fact, illegal.
Increases in military salary are traditionally determined by increases in average civilian salary, according to a method of measurement called the Employment Cost Index. Regardless of the actual dollar increase in salary, the base pay for service-members must be at least 0.5% above the corresponding civilian pay because of a Defense Authorization Act which Congress passed in 1999.
But according to Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers, the Bush Administration’s proposed raise of only 3% for active-duty troops in Iraq and Afghanistan is actually less than the average increase in civilian wages from 2006 to 2007 (3.3%), instead of the required 0.5% more than the average civilian wage (which would be equal to 3.8%).
If Congress passes the funding plan that the Administration has proposed, they will, in effect, be illegally depriving the troops of the minimum pay raise guaranteed to them by the earlier law. The move would save the Bush Administration millions and could cost new US Army recruits (who are the least effected by the proposed pay raise) a few hundred dollars annually.
Still, some service-members might take comfort from the fact that the issue at hand is a raise in salary, not a decrease, as the Bush Administration and the Department of Defense had previously tried to pull off in 2003, until they got caught red-handed attempting to stiff U.S. troops back then as well…
In the summer of 2003, the Bush Administration secretly planned pay cuts for soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was not until the plan was made public that the White House was forced to make an embarrassing political flip-flop on the matter, but not before several high-profile Democrats decried their efforts to save money by depriving the troops of their “imminent danger pay.”
As a result, American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan who faced considerable risk of being “killed, injured, or wounded by hostile fire, explosion of a hostile mine, or any other hostile action,” were allowed to keep their imminent danger pay. Even so, that isn’t much compared to the $2,100 a month that the Canadian government gives as a bonus to its soldiers stationed in hostile places like Afghanistan– tax free.
That’s about $1,929 when converted to American dollars, which is still a far cry from the extra $7.50 each day that American soldiers get for putting themselves in the most dangerous place in the world.
The average salary of males age 25 and over in the United States is more than $39,000 according to the US Census Bureau. There are soldiers in Iraq earning less than half that in basic pay.
Republican Representative Mike Pence of Indiana recently compared an Iraqi market he visited — one that had been scene of an earlier car bomb — to a “normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summertime.” The average Indiana police officer earns more than $45,000 according to data available on the website Salary.com. Privates starting out in the US Army, on the other hand, can get better pay at McDonalds flipping burgers.
Questions also arise about the pay that American soldiers are given compared to that of Iraqi soldiers. The minimum wage in Iraq is the equivalent of 70 US dollars a month, and although the new Iraqi Army was paid that wage at its inception in 2003, officials later raised Iraqi salaries by four times that amount. Still, Iraqi soldiers complain that this is still not nearly enough money to compensate them for the enormous risks they face on the job. So far in 2007, 419 American soldiers have died in Iraq, but more than twice that number of Iraqi security forces have been killed, according to the website iCasualties.org which monitors fatalities in the conflict.
It’s not just American soldiers who are being paid shockingly low wages for their service. British soldiers in Iraq risking their lives in the middle east are paid less than the average starting salary of a police officer back home in England — less than half of the British minimum wage. One British officer complained to the UK newspaper The Independent last year: “Frankly, [British privates] would make more money emptying dustbins. They are being treated appallingly.”
Unless those dustbins are located in the middle of a war zone, it’s probably safe to say that emptying them is a lot less dangerous — and smell every bit as bad — as the job soldiers are being asked to do in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Update: An earlier version of this item incorrectly stated that the increase in ECI from 2006 to 2007 was 3.2%, it was actually 3.3%, meaning that the Administration’s salary plan would deprive service-members of slightly more salary than previously thought. I regret the error.
I agree that the military should make far more than they do (and that PMC’s should be outlawed, btw) but don’t forget to mention that the burger-flipper’s paycheck is covering his/her cost of living, while the soldier’s for the most part is not. And that, while deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, the soldier’s pay is 100% tax-free.
We have that here in Utah too.
If you want to, let’s say, teach children how to read, write and do math…your salary won’t let you buy a home. Average starting salary for a teacher $25,130 (before taxes)…my favorite part…”Nationally, average teacher salary growth failed to keep up with inflation for the first time…blah blah dates and such.” Link
I love red states… if you start off in a Utah school you’ll be too dumb(or brainwashed) to know who’s screwing ya, and the Army is a job that pays…of course selling your body on the street pays too; but, the retirement plan is iffy.
EVERY SINGLE DEMOCRAT should be screaming:
“We can let Halliburton lose BILLIONS of dollars in Iraq but we can’t find the money for our troops? Do the Rethuglicans (excuse me Republicrats, oh, wait, Republicants, or, whatever) do they really HATE our troops that much?”
“Are the opponents of this bill really so DISGUSTING that they would vote HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS for GIANT WAR CORPORATIONS but not enough for the young men and women on the ground who are willing to risk their lives, unlike almost all the people in the White House who found reasons NOT to serve their country at the front?”
“These people are SICK and HATEFUL and DISGUSTING.”
Come on Dems — start turning the frame! The Reps have used the Rep=Daddy/Dem=Mommy myth for too long — make them PAY FOR IT NOW!!!
Jam this crap down their throats till they choke on it and die!!!
Play like you mean it Dems. Play like it counts.
CharlieL
Portland, OR
If I had the choice, I would prefer not to don a uniform and kill for my country, but I will happily pay somebody else to do it, and if I do, it ought to be a heck of a lot they get paid.
The way the Bush administration treats the troops doing its bidding is evil.
That said, it has been a few decades since I was an Army Personnel Clerk. I question if the the numbers quoted are strictly the cash wages or if they take into account that housing, food, medical care and basic clothing needs are supplied in addition to cash wages. Those non-taxable additions to cash wages are not provided to the civilian wage earners. If these “benefits” have not been counted in the totals, then there is a large disparity in total compensation. Even so, these protectors of the nation deserve every penny of compensation we can deliver.
Thanks for your comments, everyone.
Re TomaHawk: Great point to bring up. As you probably remember, basic pay (sometimes referred to as “base pay”) is the type of pay that all military employees are guaranteed.
Different service-members deployed in different places under different situations may also qualify for different allowances, such as a Basic Housing Allowance (BAH) for those service-members who are stateside and do not live on base. Another example of an allowance is a Basic Allowance for Sustenance (BFS), which provides help for soldiers to buy food if they don’t live on base. There are other types of additional pay like flight pay, sea pay, etc, but those serving in Iraq and Afghanistan do not qualify for many of these. There are other types of pay however that soldiers deployed in Iraq for example get that most other soldiers don’t– like Imminent Danger Pay or “combat pay” (discussed in the article), and also Involuntary Separation Pay, which goes to soldiers whose deployments have been extended in violation of the Pentagon’s guidelines (something that is becoming all too common right now).
In addition, some troops in Iraq and Afghanistan who may be the same rank could be paid very different wages because of other circumstances surrounding their employment, such as special skills (like language skills), or the amount of time they’ve been in the Armed Forces (those who have signed up more recently are paid significantly less money). As a result of these reasons, it’s very difficult to calculate any type of average salary for soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, however it’s important to keep in mind that the base pay– the one that is guaranteed to all soldiers is the single most important and by far the single most significant source of revenue, eclipsing all other allowances and other pay that service-members by very, very large margins.
I’ve tried to cite each statistic I use, so feel free to look them up if you’re interested further. 🙂
It’s true, this only takes into consideration the base pay. However, one only need look at a situation such as my own to realize just how essential even this base pay is. Being an E2 (Seaman Apprentice) in the Navy, I make approximately 14,500 a year, including sea pay and the amount of tax free “imminent danger pay” I earned last year from my time in the Persian Gulf. Total. That’s it. Why? Because I’m just a grunt, that’s why. A wholly expendable, mostly useless grunt, according to the navy. In contrast, the starting salaries for a laborer working with that amazing bastion of capitalism KBR (A subsidiary of Halliburton, inc), doing the same job as the Seabees (Navy constructionmen), makes closer to, say, 80,000 for the same amount of time in the “sandbox”.
Also, at least in the navy, most of the extra allowances (BAH, BAS, BAQ Dif, etc) only are awarded if the servicemember is an E5 or higher or has a family. Most of us, especially below E5, don’t. We are not entitled to any of these benefits. In fact, aside from working our way up in the ranks, we aren’t even recommended that we do anything to change that. We’re discouraged from starting a family. And in regards to not having cost of living expenses, you’re right. We have no cost of living expenses, if we choose to live on the ship. With our whole 8 square feet of space, living in the same compartment as 100 other men. I don’t know about anyone else, but that doesn’t quite seem like a comfortable to me. So 14,500 dollars. In San Diego, a very expensive place to live. I’d say we’re definitely tragically underpaid.
Thanks for your comment, Homelesshobbit, I think you contributed some useful insight.
Brad – would you say that the salary is on par with the stats at the SalaryBase project? I was wondering if you know someone there so we can ask them to put up a question to categorize our troops
…and the Dems ONCE AGAIN don’t play a hand, handed to them on a silver platter!!! They could be all over the news with this. Makes you wonder about the Dems, doesn’t it?
What gets me, is how the fascists say, “Funding the troops”, when the so-called “funding” doesn’t include a huge pay increase for the soldiers…it contains more military industrial profits…and they say, “Funding the troops”…does anyone get that? Why don’t the Dems say, “This is NOT funding the troops!!!”
Illegal taxes to pay for an illegal war, just another few infringements on our rights by the gov’t. Add it to the ever-growing list of violations:
They violate the 1st Amendment by opening mail, caging demonstrators and banning books like “America Deceived” from Amazon America Deceived (book).
They violate the 2nd Amendment by confiscating guns during Katrina.
They violate the 4th Amendment by conducting warrant-less wiretaps.
They violate the 5th and 6th Amendment by suspending habeas corpus.
They violate the 8th Amendment by torturing.
They violate the entire Constitution by starting 2 illegal wars based on lies and on behalf of a foriegn gov’t.
Support Dr. Ron Paul and reverse these trends.
BlackWater people are making over a $100,000 a year to work in the volitile ME. THere are close to 140,000 of them being paid by your uncle and they are not accountable to any laws Iraqi or International like the troops, They are private and have been treated very nice by the Bush Admin. they are said to have roots in the theocratic-corporate-greed machine. IF Uncle can pay a for profit private contractor and not the troops I would say that the President needs to go into retirement. What a bunch of facists pigs. Truly disgusting.
Are you sure about this? I wasn’t able to find the relevant clause in the Defense Authorization Act, but if your description that “the base pay for service-members must be at least 0.5% above the corresponding civilian pay” is correct, then that can be achieved with an increase equal to the civilian pay increase. In other words, from your description, the law requires the pay level (in, say, dollars per hour) to be .5% higher than the corresponding civilian pay level, not that the increase has to be .5% higher.
For example, if the civilian pay is $10/hour, the corresponding military pay has to be a least $10.05/hour (.5% higher). Increasing both by, say, 3% means that the military pay is still exactly .5% higher ($10.30 civilian vs. $10.3515 military).
Can someone track down the relevant wording in the act?
Thanks for your comment, Keith. I can tell you’re an astute reader. You’d be technically correct, however (and this is noted in the bill and frequently discussed elsewhere), there is already a discrepancy between military and civilian wages which Congress has been trying to close for years- it’s commonly referred to as “the pay gap.” They’re already playing catchup, so to speak… that’s the reason the 0.5% provision was added in the first place.
Illegal? That has never held preznit blush back before, during, or after.
To him “illegal” simply means something you have to lie your way thru with special lies, and legal is something you lie your way thru with regular lies.
but don’t forget Cliton paid them less, kennedy , johnson, paid them less, under clinton retirement pay was 40% pof base pay, under Bush it went to 50% of base pay