Contents: The Review Body on Armed Forces Pay in the United Kingdom and Adjustments in the Level and Structure of Military Compensation; The Recommendations of the Folsom Panel and the Commission on Executive, Legislative and Judicial Salaries; Integration of Military Retired Pay and Social Security Benefits; The Attribution Problem and its Implication for the Private Sector; New Initiative for the Military Estate Program, and Postretirement Adjustment of Military and Federal Civil Service Retired Pay.

This book provides an introduction to important socio-political issues and selected demographic data underlying recurrent debates concerning both the mythic and actual social composition and quality of U.S. enlisted forces

By one estimate, between fiscal years 1995 and 2005, total compensation costs for current and former military personnel increased by almost 60 percent. The military retirement benefit remains a significant portion of these costs, and every change to accessions, retention, and basic pay today will have a future effect on pension expenditures. This technical report provides an overview of the history of U.S. military retirement studies and associated legislation, with a particular focus on the past 60 years of proposed reforms. It is organized around the following five major issues that have driven attempts at retirement system reform: cost, equity, selective retention, civilian comparability, and force management flexibility. The author finds that cost alone is reason to analyze the current retirement system, and reform proposals of the past have focused carefully on cost. However, he also finds that, as the military's mission evolves over time, it is also important to consider the sometimes subtle incentive effects that the retirement system has on service member behavior. Beyond considerations of cost, reform of the military retirement system necessarily involves ramifications for force structure and operational readiness.

Comparing military pay with civilian pay, the authors find that military pay in 2017 was above the 70th percentile of civilian pay. It was at the 85th percentile for enlisted personnel and the 77th percentile for officers.