America is Center Left

[AZGrizFan]

the reason we have soldiers families on food stamps (and this is straight from multiple guys who are in now, and have been over the past 10 years) is that either a) that family can't budget for shit or b) the dude won't let his wife find work (which i was surprised to hear still happened) or c) their family situation is more complicated than they're letting on

Yeah. You're right. What would people who actually were IN the military know....

That $1,467/month could buy an Escalade and waterfront property if they'd just budget properly.



Fuckin' idiots.

[SuperHornet]

the reason we have soldiers families on food stamps (and this is straight from multiple guys who are in now, and have been over the past 10 years) is that either a) that family can't budget for **** or b) the dude won't let his wife find work (which i was surprised to hear still happened) or c) their family situation is more complicated than they're letting on

I really can't speak to b), though I ran into that often enough to know it was bullcrap. Idiot marries his HS sweetheart just before deployment, drags her out to his base in the middle of nowhere, refuses to show her how to use the exchange/commissary or introduce her to anybody, and then pops out on deployment, and wonders why his wife either fled for home or got preggers at the local deployment widow bar. I'm with you on that one.

But the other two?

a) The average guy in is c. 18-22. Translation: S/he has a HS education, which has FAILED to cover basic budgeting for 40 years or more. This shouldn't be surprising. But there's a caveat I'll get to in a minute.

c) "It's complicated?" Yeah. Any E-3, even with the higher BAH, makes barely enough to pay the rent in most places. And if they take base housing, said BAH goes away. BAH is SUPPOSED to cover rent AND utilities, but most places in military towns jack up the rent as soon as a BAH increase goes through, so servicemember has to pay utilities out of pocket. In many places, that's a significant chunk. And it's even worse if they have kids.

So, you see, even the AVERAGE E-1 to E-5 (and in some areas, even higher) is on welfare. The pay gap with the civilian sector is huge, especially when one factors in the level of training. Asking these kids to do what they do and then yank the rug out from them under them like this is REALLY disingenuous.

[TwinTownBisonFan]

the reason we have soldiers families on food stamps (and this is straight from multiple guys who are in now, and have been over the past 10 years) is that either a) that family can't budget for shit or b) the dude won't let his wife find work (which i was surprised to hear still happened) or c) their family situation is more complicated than they're letting on

Yeah. You're right. What would people who actually were IN the military know....

That $1,467/month could buy an Escalade and waterfront property if they'd just budget properly.



Fuckin' idiots.

here's the thing... single guy with that income... not great, but you can get by
married with a working spouse and one kid... again - not great, but you get by - plus they get dependent medical care (and they should - i'm just pointing out that it's a major expense that is part of their employment)
if you start pumping out kids above your income level... i figure that's where the "can't budget for shit" comment comes from

[AZGrizFan]

Yeah. You're right. What would people who actually were IN the military know....

That $1,467/month could buy an Escalade and waterfront property if they'd just budget properly.



Fuckin' idiots.

here's the thing... single guy with that income... not great, but you can get by
married with a working spouse and one kid... again - not great, but you get by - plus they get dependent medical care (and they should - i'm just pointing out that it's a major expense that is part of their employment)
if you start pumping out kids above your income level... i figure that's where the "can't budget for shit" comment comes from

Yet you fully support welfare and WIC, where they're rewarded for having more kids.

[TwinTownBisonFan]

here's the thing... single guy with that income... not great, but you can get by
married with a working spouse and one kid... again - not great, but you get by - plus they get dependent medical care (and they should - i'm just pointing out that it's a major expense that is part of their employment)
if you start pumping out kids above your income level... i figure that's where the "can't budget for shit" comment comes from

Yet you fully support welfare and WIC, where they're rewarded for having more kids.

you put words in my mouth z...

i never said i didn't support them getting those benefits... the line about not being able to "budget for shit" came from buddies of mine in the service. i'm all about taking care of kids whose parents are too stupid not to have them...

[Chizzang]

Well....you stand by your statement, huh?

If we're just gonna pull statistics out of our ass, then I stand by my statement that 90% of all Harvard grads who live in Seattle are needledicked nitwits.

I'd say it was higher than that...

[D1B]

here's the thing... single guy with that income... not great, but you can get by
married with a working spouse and one kid... again - not great, but you get by - plus they get dependent medical care (and they should - i'm just pointing out that it's a major expense that is part of their employment)
if you start pumping out kids above your income level... i figure that's where the "can't budget for shit" comment comes from

Yet you fully support welfare and WIC, where they're rewarded for having more kids.

Back this up Z. Show how it pays to have more kids.

Sources and credible links please.

[D1B]

here's the thing... single guy with that income... not great, but you can get by
married with a working spouse and one kid... again - not great, but you get by - plus they get dependent medical care (and they should - i'm just pointing out that it's a major expense that is part of their employment)
if you start pumping out kids above your income level... i figure that's where the "can't budget for shit" comment comes from

Yet you fully support welfare and WIC, where they're rewarded for having more kids.

Z the military is filled with dickheads. Besides pilots and service acadamy grads, It's the default career for fuck ups and idiots who cant and couldn't make it in the private sector.

It's america's largest welfare program.

Look at homeless stats. Veterans make up a huge percentage of america's adult male homeless. The go into the military to be taken care of and they leave it with the same, or worse, sense of helplessness and entitlement. Meanwhile their poor wives and multiple children fill up the welfare centers that you so despise.

Our military blows.

[BDKJMU]

the reason we have soldiers families on food stamps (and this is straight from multiple guys who are in now, and have been over the past 10 years) is that either a) that family can't budget for **** or b) the dude won't let his wife find work (which i was surprised to hear still happened) or c) their family situation is more complicated than they're letting on

I really can't speak to b), though I ran into that often enough to know it was bullcrap. Idiot marries his HS sweetheart just before deployment, drags her out to his base in the middle of nowhere, refuses to show her how to use the exchange/commissary or introduce her to anybody, and then pops out on deployment, and wonders why his wife either fled for home or got preggers at the local deployment widow bar. I'm with you on that one.

But the other two?

a) The average guy in is c. 18-22. Translation: S/he has a HS education, which has FAILED to cover basic budgeting for 40 years or more. This shouldn't be surprising. But there's a caveat I'll get to in a minute.

c) "It's complicated?" Yeah. Any E-3, even with the higher BAH, makes barely enough to pay the rent in most places. And if they take base housing, said BAH goes away. BAH is SUPPOSED to cover rent AND utilities, but most places in military towns jack up the rent as soon as a BAH increase goes through, so servicemember has to pay utilities out of pocket. In many places, that's a significant chunk. And it's even worse if they have kids.

So, you see, even the AVERAGE E-1 to E-5 (and in some areas, even higher) is on welfare. The pay gap with the civilian sector is huge, especially when one factors in the level of training. Asking these kids to do what they do and then yank the rug out from them under them like this is REALLY disingenuous.

BS. The % is extremely low.
"The most recent study of food stamp usage by service members was conducted in 2003 before significant gains in military compensation occurred. Even at that time, only 2100 service members were on food stamps, which was about one tenth of one percent of the active duty force.

Since 2002, military basic pay has increased by 42 percent, housing allowances by 83 percent and food allowance by 40 percent -- compared to a 32 percent rise in private-sector salaries, according to Defense Department compensation officials.

Almost any service member who qualifies for food stamps today has a large family and lives in base housing. Most of them only qualify because the value of base housing is not considered as income by the Department of Agriculture in determining food stamp eligibility.

In fiscal 2008, a total of 328 service members received Family Subsistence Supplemental Allowance (FSSA) at some point during the year. That was 0.02 percent of the 1.4 million on active duty."
http://www.military.com/opinion/0,15202,216669,00.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

You mentioned BAH, but that is one of of about 70 different pays and allowances. Military pay is very complicated, and involves far more than simply looking at base pay and BAH. For guys who are late teens-20s, no college degree, they are taken care of pretty well (although nothing can really pay you enough for getting shot at).
http://www.military.com/benefits/military-pay/index" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[SuperHornet]

Since 2002, military basic pay has increased by 42 percent, housing allowances by 83 percent and food allowance by 40 percent -- compared to a 32 percent rise in private-sector salaries, according to Defense Department compensation officials.

Don't you just love isolated statistics?

You ever stop to think about WHY the base pay discrepancy? It was a concerted effort on the part of the military to close a decades-long documented gap in pay between the military and private sectors. In today's volunteer military, it's hard to keep people in when pay on the outside for equivalent jobs is much higher.

Case in point: Navy nurses leaving active duty to take the SAME job at the SAME Naval hospital as a civilian for TWICE the pay.

Second Case: Nuclear-trained personnel frequently bolt for higher paying jobs at civilian plants. Pilots are a more well-known problem.

It's harder to see the connection in the case of a grunt, where there's no direct overlap. But the pay gap DOES exist, and that pay difference you noted wasn't an accident. It was intentional.

But at least you brought in hard stats, unlike those above here in the thread who pulled #'s out of their rear end.

[TwinTownBisonFan]

I really can't speak to b), though I ran into that often enough to know it was bullcrap. Idiot marries his HS sweetheart just before deployment, drags her out to his base in the middle of nowhere, refuses to show her how to use the exchange/commissary or introduce her to anybody, and then pops out on deployment, and wonders why his wife either fled for home or got preggers at the local deployment widow bar. I'm with you on that one.

But the other two?

a) The average guy in is c. 18-22. Translation: S/he has a HS education, which has FAILED to cover basic budgeting for 40 years or more. This shouldn't be surprising. But there's a caveat I'll get to in a minute.

c) "It's complicated?" Yeah. Any E-3, even with the higher BAH, makes barely enough to pay the rent in most places. And if they take base housing, said BAH goes away. BAH is SUPPOSED to cover rent AND utilities, but most places in military towns jack up the rent as soon as a BAH increase goes through, so servicemember has to pay utilities out of pocket. In many places, that's a significant chunk. And it's even worse if they have kids.

So, you see, even the AVERAGE E-1 to E-5 (and in some areas, even higher) is on welfare. The pay gap with the civilian sector is huge, especially when one factors in the level of training. Asking these kids to do what they do and then yank the rug out from them under them like this is REALLY disingenuous.

BS. The % is extremely low.
"The most recent study of food stamp usage by service members was conducted in 2003 before significant gains in military compensation occurred. Even at that time, only 2100 service members were on food stamps, which was about one tenth of one percent of the active duty force.

Since 2002, military basic pay has increased by 42 percent, housing allowances by 83 percent and food allowance by 40 percent -- compared to a 32 percent rise in private-sector salaries, according to Defense Department compensation officials.

Almost any service member who qualifies for food stamps today has a large family and lives in base housing. Most of them only qualify because the value of base housing is not considered as income by the Department of Agriculture in determining food stamp eligibility.

In fiscal 2008, a total of 328 service members received Family Subsistence Supplemental Allowance (FSSA) at some point during the year. That was 0.02 percent of the 1.4 million on active duty."
http://www.military.com/opinion/0,15202,216669,00.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

You mentioned BAH, but that is one of of about 70 different pays and allowances. Military pay is very complicated, and involves far more than simply looking at base pay and BAH. For guys who are late teens-20s, they are taken care of pretty well (although nothing can really pay you enough for getting shot at).
http://www.military.com/benefits/military-pay/index" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

makes a hell of a lot more sense... a lot sensationalism for a TINY percentage...

[BDKJMU]

Since 2002, military basic pay has increased by 42 percent, housing allowances by 83 percent and food allowance by 40 percent -- compared to a 32 percent rise in private-sector salaries, according to Defense Department compensation officials.

Don't you just love isolated statistics?

You ever stop to think about WHY the base pay discrepancy? It was a concerted effort on the part of the military to close a decades-long documented gap in pay between the military and private sectors. In today's volunteer military, it's hard to keep people in when pay on the outside for equivalent jobs is much higher.

Case in point: Navy nurses leaving active duty to take the SAME job at the SAME Naval hospital as a civilian for TWICE the pay.

Second Case: Nuclear-trained personnel frequently bolt for higher paying jobs at civilian plants. Pilots are a more well-known problem.

It's harder to see the connection in the case of a grunt, where there's no direct overlap. But the pay gap DOES exist, and that pay difference you noted wasn't an accident. It was intentional.

But at least you brought in hard stats, unlike those above here in the thread who pulled #'s out of their rear end.

Sure, for some job fields, esp white collar and high tech, that might be the case. But again, total compensation (total pay and bennies for the majority of the military, guys (and gals) whoe are 18 to mid to late 20s, no college degree, is pretty good, with no pay gap when comparing not just base pay or total pay (some of which is untaxed) but TOTAL COMPENSATION. Also, for many of the MOS, there is no comparison. (Ex, how are you going to compare the pay of an Army 11 Bravo (infantryman) with a civilian infantryman when there is no such thing?)

[SuperHornet]

You do make a good point there, BDK. People have proposed a sliding scale varied by MOS for quite some time. The problem with that is it would turn the military into what professional sports has become: the players trash the coach (who makes less) in the press and get him fired instead of the spoiled sissy. Sure, I'm probably exaggerating that to some degree, but that's what's been proposed off an on for about 20 years or so now. Because BAH (a combination of the old one-size-fits-all Basic Allowance for Quarters and Variable Housing Allowance which varied by area) is different based on where you're stationed, the government tries to establish a certain standard of living that's supposed to be sustainable at each paygrade. If a kid goes overboard, that's on him. But the bigger issue is greedy apartment managers who ignore the original idea behind BAH: it's supposed to be for rent AND utilities. As soon as BAH rises, they jack up the rent to suck it up, so the servicemember is STILL behind.

The total compensation point is good, but it's hard to define. A married guy rates TriCare FOR HIS FAMILY. He doesn't get it for himself because he's covered by his unit physician/corpsman and the local military hospital. One's "benefit" from that, just like any HMO, varies by how much it's used. And sometimes, it's harder to use than the average HMO. So it's really hard to judge.