House members push senators to back better pay for junior enlisted

House lawmakers are urging their Senate colleagues to include a host of military quality-of-life improvements in their final draft of the annual defense authorization bill later this month, emphasizing the need for better pay and more support services for junior enlisted troops.

In a letter sent late Friday to leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee, all 13 members of the House Armed Services Committee’s special panel on quality of life called the issue “urgent” and pushed senators to reconsider their decision to support only a trimmed-down version of House quality-of-life reforms.

“The panel repeatedly heard first-hand how military families — traditionally a bedrock source of military recruiting — are less likely to recommend military service for their own children, predominantly due to quality of life concerns,” the group wrote. “This is an urgent indicator that we must promptly correct with meaningful results, not just supportive rhetoric.”

The panel — led by Reps. Don Bacon, R-Neb., and Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa. — has been working for the last 22 months on efforts to improve service member pay, child care services and housing support in the military.

Junior enlisted pay bump to cost as much as two new aircraft carriers

In June, the House passed a draft of the annual defense authorization bill including the special panel’s recommendations. That included pay raises for troops ranked E-4 and below of up to 19.5% next year, bringing nearly every service members’ base salary above $30,000 annually.

The bill also expands child care availability at military bases, adds more funding to military medical facilities, improves military spouse job training programs and calls for boosting housing stipends for some families.

Those plans would add more than $24 billion to the Defense Department budget over the next five years. The Senate Armed Services Committee opted for more modest quality-of-life improvements in its initial legislative proposals, including a smaller pay raise for junior troops and studies into other reforms.

Defense Department officials have recommended waiting on major changes in military pay tables until after a Pentagon analysis on service member compensation is completed later this year. But House lawmakers in Friday’s letter said the issue cannot be pushed off any longer.

“Sudden and significant increases to the cost of living have outpaced annual military pay raises and triggered economic, food, and housing insecurity for [service members] and military families, especially within the enlisted ranks,” they wrote.

“Furthermore, as local jurisdictions increase the minimum wage in response to prevailing economic conditions, competition for military recruits will continue to intensify.”

Lawmakers from the House and Senate Armed Services Committees are working behind the scenes now on final negotiations for the authorization bill, which contains hundreds of policy changes and funding instructions for military programs.

The legislation is considered must-pass each year and will likely be voted on by both chambers in the first few weeks following Tuesday’s election. Friday’s letter appears designed to push the quality-of-life issues back into the forefront of that debate.

In a roundtable with reporters Oct. 28, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jack Reed, D-R.I., said that negotiators are “working to get our informal conference concluded as quickly as possible, and then inform the leadership of what issues might be outstanding.” But he would not specify what those points of conflict are.

Regardless of the final negotiation results, all troops are poised to receive a 4.5% pay raise in 2025. The mark is based on the rate of civilian sector wage growth and has been already backed by House and Senate leaders, as well as the White House.