United States Military Pay

United States Military Pay is money paid to members in the United States Armed Forces. The amount of pay may vary by the member's rank, time in the military, location duty assignment, and by some special skills the member may have.

There are two broad categories of military pay: "Pay" and "Allowance". Typically, pay is money which is based upon remuneration for employment, while allowance is money necessary for the efficient performance of duty. Generally speaking, pay is income, while allowances are reimbursements. In the landmark case Jones v. The United States, the Court of Claims decided that military allowances are not "of a compensatory character" and "not income as well." Since it was determined that allowances are not income, they cannot be taxed, divided, or garnished, while pay can be (42 USC 659, et seq.).

Typically members are paid on the 1st and 15th day of each month. If the 1st or 15th of the month falls on a Saturday the member will be paid the weekday before. If it falls on a Sunday, they get paid on the following Monday. The monthly pay statement is known as a Leave and Earnings Statement or LES, which is usually available near the end of each month. The money is directly deposited into a member's personal banking account. The payment on the 15th is known as mid month pay, and the pay on the 1st is end of month pay. (End of the month pay used to fall on the last day of the month, but in 1990 was moved one day to the 1st to save money in a fiscal year.)

There are a few components which most military members receive.

Also known as Base Pay, this is given to members of the active duty military on a monthly basis and is determined by their rank (or more appropriately their pay grade) and their length of time in military service. Basic Pay is the same for all the services.

Title 37 U.S.C. 1009 provides a permanent formula for an automatic annual military pay raise that indexes the raise to the annual increase in the Employment Cost Index (ECI). The Fiscal Year 2010 President’s Budget request for a 2.9% military pay raise was consistent with this formula. However, Congress, in financial years 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, and 2009 approved the pay raise as the ECI increase plus 0.5%. The 2007 pay raise was equal to the ECI. (FY2010 National Defense Authorization Act: Selected Military Personnel Policy Issues, Congressional Research Service)

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