Featured Marine Corps Sgt Major speaks

The proposed increase, as I noted previously, is less than the inflation/cost-of-iving rate, and a cut of increase to nearly half the proposal makes it that much worse.

Bush never proposed a lesser increase that resulted in cost-of-living increases failing to match inflation.

 

I did not say they were.

I'm sorry weren't you in the guard? Have you ever been full time active duty? You can agree but today's troops do not. Especially those with families.

 

When I joined the army as an E1, I felt rich. It was just me and the wife with one on the way. We were making enough money to realize our dream: she could be a stay at home mom.

Now, as an E5 with 3 kids, I qualify for WIC and food stamps (which I don't get, FYI). I am not complaining about my pay at all. We get by just fine and have everything we need, and most of what we want. But I find it odd that the government says I am not making enough to feed my family, but then fight a pay raise. There's a disconnect somewhere.

 

To be perfectly honest, I don't know. We do receive WIC, and the WIC office told us that we would qualify if we applied. So I can't give a straight answer about that.

And don't get me wrong, I think I make enough money. I take care of my family, and have a tiny bit left over for some extras, like eating out once a week. But I find it odd that the government is saying "you make enough" while also saying "you don't make enough". One or the other has to be wrong.

 

Update: talked to the wife, and for food stamps they look at your entire income; base pay, housing, subsistence, and COLA if applicable. I make $100 too much per month for food stamps. But my buddy applied. E5 with 4 kids. And he was approved.

 

Our Military should not be so poorly paid that they have to apply for assistance. According to current standards they are living in poverty. Making these cuts to pay increases is absurd.

 

If they are qualifying for food stamps and other benefits they are living in poverty. Add to that there are a great many of our military that are working part time jobs.

 

John, this is typical of those who have posted here, protesting that U.S. servicemen and -women "can't possibly be living at the poverty level." Sorry, but it's true, and it isn't because of "mismanagement of personal finances." It's because this administration is paying our fighting forces at a rate worse than at any other time since the Revolutionary War.

The article claims a base pay for a new soldier with a wife and a child is about $20,000, with almost an equal amount in housing and food allowances, for an overall income of $40,000. Sorry, but that's horse hockey. An E-1 with less than four months in -- a "new soldier" -- gets $16,545.60 a year, and his housing and food allowance for two dependents getting BAH is 67% of that, or $11,085.55, a total of $27,631.15. CNN's numbers seem to be a bit off.

Military personnel who qualified for food stamps leapt a whopping 70% in 2009. That didn't happen because, overnight, every enlisted person in the U.S. military became inexplicably stupid about money management. It happened because there was this thing called "the recession" that hit that year, and 2009 was about five percent less than current pay, and it wasn't increasing at the rate of inflation then. Now they want to cut this year's increase even farther below the poverty rate.

Just in case you think the increases stopped with the "end" of the recession, think again. Military personnel who qualified for food stamps increased an additional 13% in 2012, and supposedly that was two years after the recession ended. In 2013, military personnel who qualified for assistance rose another 5%, so it isn't money mismanagement. My opinion is, that's nonsense. We're still in a recession. Stagnant growth of less than 2% a year isn't a growing economy. That doesn't even keep up with inflation, even at it's current low rate.

Get off the military's back. Unless you want to stand a wall in their place.

 

Sorry, my bad. It was directed at everyone on the thread who seems to think soldiers are mismanaging their money, as that's the only reason they can see as making food stamps necessary. It was not directed at you, and I apologize for not making a differentiation.

 

I sent money home to feed my younger brothers and sisters. I bought my parents their first color TV. I had a souped up Dodge Dart. I managed to dress nice. And I always made sure to bring something home when I went somewhere. I took a week of leave and drove to the world's fair. All at a max of E-4.

I managed to do quite well in the Navy, and even had about $11,000 when I signed my DD-214.