Lousy pay is no longer part of Army life

By David W. Kuhns Sr., Northwest Guardian

When we asked Soldiers for reasons to stay in the Army, none of them mentioned the pay. Maybe they should have.

There have always been a lot of reasons people enlisted in the Army, and plenty of varied reasons to stay in, as well.

We saw that in the responses to this week’s Street Talk question. Soldiers responded with everything from a desire to protect our constitutional liberties, to qualifying for educational benefits.

But no one talked about pay.

It’s funny. Part of Army culture has always been that the pay is lousy. Any discussion of salary in the Army has usually been followed by a statement beginning with “but, at least ...” You can fill in the blank: “you have a roof over your head;” “you know you have a job;” “you aren’t going to be laid off.”

Even those outside the gate have taken that image of the poverty-stricken Soldier to heart.

A few weeks ago a local group began a well-intentioned campaign to collect shoes and winter coats for the poor children of Fort Lewis.

Now, there certainly was a time when military pay was decidedly sub-standard.

When you were drafting young men to fill the ranks, you didn’t have to entice them with pay and benefits.

But, in the decades since we began relying on volunteers the pay profile has made some major changes.

It doesn’t take much of an analysis to conclude that, along with the many other motivations cited by our Street Talk respondents, you can make a pretty good living wearing the Army uniform.

Take a look at the numbers. Even the most junior Soldiers earn more than they probably could in civilian life. A private E-2, with less than two years’ service, earns $18,032 a year. Now that is considerably better than the Washington minimum wage of about $16,000 per year, but it gets better.

If our privates are married, they also receive Basic Allowance for Housing. BAH for them, here, is $14,412 per year.

BAH for a single private is almost $11,000 a year — even if he receives that pay through a free barracks room. A married Soldier also receives subsistence pay — another $3,500 a year.

Then there are all the other special pays and allowances. In the end, those new privates make about $33,000 a year. That’s pretty good for a young man or woman, just starting out on a career.

To put it into perspective, the starting pay for a school teacher with a bachelor’s degree is $33,898 in the state of Washington.

And that doesn’t tell the whole story, either. More than half that Soldier compensation is nontaxable.

How much does that Soldier have to pay for health care for his family? Nothing. How much does he have to contribute toward a generous retirement plan? Nothing.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not criticizing the pay Soldiers receive. They earn every penny of it.

There are demands made of our Soldiers that others in our society don’t face. How much is it worth to ask people to lay their lives on the line? It probably should be a lot more than it is. That is probably why nobody talks about money when they describe why they stay in.

But it’s still nice to know that with all the sacrifices and challenges the Army throws at its Soldiers, poverty isn’t one of them.