Another thing to consider, all those in combat areas should get their paychecks tax free. At least that’s the way ours was when I was stationed in Turkey. So that helps a bit. I’ve always thought that the biggest breach was between officer and enlisted. An officer with a rank of O-3 can be comfortable. An enlisted E-3 is most probably struggling. I’m not saying that the education, and difference in training don’t neccesitate a different compensation, I’m just saying that civilians might tend to focus on what officers make, and never consider how little the enlisted make.
Oh, and to the story about service members on food stamps? I knew a guy that had to get WIC for his kids. He was an E-5 with 7 years in, and couldn’t feed his kids on his pay. Granted, he did have 4 children, which might have been a bit more than I would have had, knowing the financial difficulties. Still, it was hard as a junior enlisted. Believe me, I know.
Yes. When you are in a combat zone you are tax exempt. Its a nice addition to your paycheck. Plus you get haz duty pay which is $150 PLUS family seperation pay which was $150 in 99 when I Got out.
As far as BAH rates go I am on the fence about that. On one hand if you have a family and your spouse decides to go to school or not work then, yeah, its gonna be harder. Thats one of the hard things about one income families. It is a choice that you make.
Also, if by chance you are military married to military you WILL live like a king off base. You both get single rate BAH, which amounts to 1500 or so between the 2 of you in an avg area. That is ALOT of money for housing. Then you both draw BAH, which is over $500 a month between the 2 of you. Thats alot of money for food. It makes zero sense to live on base when you are both military. You will lose money no matter how you look at it.
FTR, I am prior AF and am setting up to go back in as an officer in July, god willing, so I know alot about this stuf first hand.
BTW, that $1500 figure for BAH is for 2 E-3’s without children, so it only goes up from there. If you have a kid then one of you gets dependant rate and the other gets single rate.
This is still feeling like living VERY much close to the edge of impoverished for many parts of the country. The cost of living being what it is…
stinkpalm, if they don’t pay taxes when they are in a combat zone, what about being placed on active, and waiting at a base? ( Oppposed to being in Reserve, or on active duty but not waitint for travel orders).
Personally, reading here what the pay scales are, I have to say that I’d support legislation wiping out ALL Federal and State tax for pay that comes from the Armed Forces.
You are not tax exempt until you enter the theatre of operations.
I totally agree that it makes no sense for military members to have to pay federal taxes. It’s kind of silly to be paying me from the federal pot and then the feds taking some of it back every month.
I was told that beginning 2nd Lt’s. straight out of the academy or ROTC or a military scholarship to med-school would pull in close to $60 K per year.
I have been grossly misinformed. Suprise suprise.
At any rate, I am not looking at the military to make money, but, what is it like for a brand new officer?
Let’s just assume that somebody comes into any branch of service as a physician. What can they expect to pull in?
The chart suggests a base pay of around $25 K/year, is this accurate?
What if you live aboard a ship? Do they deduct something for that? I don’t plan to raise a family/get married/etc., so this still doesn’t seem so bad for me. What can Doper’s suggest about all of this?
Sorry I didn’t bet back to this threemae, I forgot all about it. Anyway, basic military pay scale can be found here *warning, .pdf file.
I think that if you’re already a physician when you go to join the military you’d probably come in at a higher rank. I can’t ever recall seeing a doctor with a rank of less than O-4. So that means that base pay would start at $3,311.10 per month. Now it’s unusual for someone to join already having their degree. What normally happens is that a person will join the military, get put through school, then commit to a certain number of years after they earn their degree. In fact, I knew several people that already had a degree, that joined as an enlisted servicemember, just because they had a better chance of being promoted to officer internally, rather than just walking up and joining as an officer. Heck, I’m not even sure you can do that. Maybe Monty will show up. He know’s much more than I would about that.
For enlisted members, if you’re single, living onboard ship, or in the barracks, you would not recieve the houseing allowance. If you are married, then you will recieve that money even when you’re staying on the ship during deployment. This is one of the reasons that so many enlisted people get married so young. It’s much better finacially.
And Stinkpalm, when I was in (left in 96), if you lived with another military member, then they would actually reduce the amount that they would allot you, was a huge rip off. They may have changed the rules since then.
10 billion to Isreal? Why are we giving 10 billion dollars to Isreal out of a package that is supposed to be used to fight a war? The link says this aid will be to help Isreal economy. We already give more aid to Isreal than anyone else BY FAR so why are we giving them more out of this money for the war effort? Isreal is reletively well off compared to most countries, shouldnt our aid be going to countries in need? And we are only setting aside 2.2 billion for reconstruction and humanitarian aid for the country that we bombed the hell out of… shouldnt that 10 bil go to Iraq? Is there something im missing???