House panel OKs bigger pay hikes to 2013

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House panel OKs bigger pay hikes to 2013
By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday May 15, 2008 11:19:45 EDT

The House Armed Services Committee moved Wednesday to make the 2009 defense bill even more generous for service members and their families — but also voted for a budgetary gimmick that could, in theory, force a modest one-month cut in military retired pay.

The committee’s version of the annual defense authorization bill already proposed a 3.9 percent military pay raise for Jan. 1, 2009, a half-percentage point more than requested by the Bush administration. That would reduce the purported gap in average military and private-sector wages to 2.9 percent.

In addition, an amendment sponsored by Rep. Thelma Drake, R-Va., approved by voice vote as part of a package of uncontroversial items, would mandate that military pay raises in 2010 through 2013 also be 0.5 percentage points higher than the annual increase in average private-sector wages.

Drake said this would not completely eliminate the pay gap but would leave it at less than 1 percentage point.

Congress already has provided nine consecutive years of pay raises that are greater than the Employment Cost Index, a measurement of private-sector wage growth. In the first five years, the raises were mandated by a formula set in law. Over the last four years, Congress has provided the bigger raises one year at a time.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/05/military_payraise_051508/