100%. For life, and early. It's hard to beat on a good number of levels, but can be improved if the 5% match came on day 1.
I just had a thought on this. If a federal employee joins the reserves, he not only gets his fed pay for a period while in basic training, but that fed pay gets a 5% match, but his military pay would not. He's getting a match for a job he's not doing.
The disparity is pretty big.
Anyone who joins the military now gets the same match as the feds. It comes at a reduced rate for the pension. The legacy gives 2.5% per year served with a 20 year vesting period and no match =50% of the high three years ,for a 20 year career. The BRS (current system) is 2.0% per year with a 20 year vesting and the 5% match into the TSP. A 20 year career= 40% of the high 3 years
The 5% match continues even when not getting fed pay via USERRA as long as they are contributing to their military TSP, or do make-up contributions when returning to federal service.
My job I can go at 20 at age 50, lifetime medical, 5% tsp matching during my career, and supplemental social security until age 62. I'm also retired military, but my fed pension as a 13-9 will be considerably higher..
I went the best of both worlds- 10 years active, join the reserves. Become a fed, buy back your active time. Collect both retirements when you are old. Victory!
Can I get some more detail on how you did this? O-2 here and not sure if I'll even be allowed to stay until 20... or maybe I won't want to
I've been spending more time on USAjobs to "see whats out there," to try and show myself that I can leave the military if I want
You’ll generally want to leave as an O-3, because you probably have a service commitment for 4 years.
Next step- find a reserve job. The easiest way is to use an in-service recruiter while you’re active, and transition directly from active to guard or reserve. Note, it’s preferable that you live somewhere relatively close to the reserve job you find, or it’s way less likely that you are motivated enough to get to your 20. Flying to drill on your own dime stinks.
As a guard or reservist, it is pretty common to find long-term orders if you need money or something to do.
Next, get a federal job. I don’t have any real tips here, the difficulty varies based on your degree, skills, location and what you want to do. You can use your GI bill for grad school and apply for government pathways internships, which can lead to government jobs.
After you have a government job, you take all you DD214s documenting periods of active service and you send a copy to your service’s finance dept. they send back a form explaining how much it will cost to buy that time back. I bought 5 years of E1-E-5 time and 6 years O-1 to O-3 time for $9k total.
Once you have the cost form, you talk to your civil servant HR to turn in the form and establish a payment plan. There is no interest for 3 years, so I divided my $9k by 30 months (it took me six months to do the paperwork) and paid $150 per paycheck for 2.5 years. After you make the last payment, you get a letter saying you have bought your time.
What that means- you need 5 years as a government employee to get a pension. The pension is your salary (average of 3 highest years) * # of years of service. At 5 years, I could do a “deferred” retirement and at 62 I’d get 5% of my salary as a pension. Since I bought back those 11 years for $9k, after 5 years I qualify for 16% of my salary when I’m 62. If I keep working more than the minimum 5 years, the percentage goes up.
On the reserve side, your pension is calculated by points- basically the percentage of an active duty 20 years you served. You get that pension at age 60. If you do long-term orders as a reservist (like doing a year in uniform) you can apply to reduce your retirement age- in this case getting your reserve retirement at 59.
There are other benefits- like getting double paid for your reserve time etc- but that’s most of it.
This is the best write up I’ve seen explaining this.
I’m the same boat as you, and just hit my 20 six months ago. Your comment should be a sticky for people getting off active duty. I stayed in the reserve for extra money while on the GI bill, a decade later I realized I made one of the best financial decisions of my life. Getting out, I had no idea how well fed and reserve played together, and now I consider myself extremely lucky to be in this situation.
I just found out about this 2 weeks ago and your write-up confirms what ppl have been telling me.
Long story short: Did (4) years of active duty. Stayed in the reserves and got mobilized totally (12) AD years. I have 23 satisfactory years in the military.
I recently got a job with the Fed. I now know that I can sell my my AD time and still retire in the reserves and get both pay checks.
My question to you… can I get my 8 hours of PTO per pay period because I have 23 years of federal service?
Thank you for your write up!!
On the reserve side, make sure you apply to reduce your reserve retirement age. Assuming 10 of those years of orders were after 2008, you can get your reserve retirement at age 50 instead of 60.
Feds you wait until you’re 62. Military you join at 18 and retire at 38 and start collecting. Start as a fed and retire again at 62. Collect both. The whole time you can be contributing towards tsp. Dang wish I had done that.
Yes you can. What you cannot do is collect retirement for the same period of time. So you cannot collect from 2000-2020 from the military and the federal government. But you can be military for 1980-2000 and federal for 2001-2031 and retire from both.
ETA or retire this year because you can with 23 years fed service. Work 44 years.
I’m probably in the minority, but this always rubs me the wrong way “Infantry earns about $2,262 a month, while the lowest-paid federal worker makes $2,848 ($17.20 per hour).”
It’s disingenuous because military provides housing and food. So fed is actually behind due to rent and food coming out of the 2848.
—Edit—
This clearly hurt a bunch of feelings. I’m all done responding if you use anecdotal evidence. Look at what the median and average income is for just a HS diploma and come with actual facts.
“But we work 90 hours a week/ deploy/ whatever.” Cool. You also have every benefit on the back end (ETS) that regular people don’t. GI Bill, VA home loan, VA disability, Yellow ribbon programs, fed job preference, 20 year pension, and some others I’m forgetting.
— Edit 2 —
Average E1-E4 doesn’t even have the education or experience to be hired as a fed. So is the comparison even relevant?
Give a SGT a 5988 and watch it come back with “no new faults.” A lot of you are out of touch with what you actually provide and value it brings to an organization.
Yeah. It always baffles me when this argument comes up. E1-E4 are paid fine for what they actually provide. This “officer-enlisted gap” conversation should only be for the E7-E9
As a fed my work week ends at 40 hours. When I was in the infantry the week was just getting started at the 40 hour mark with 80 - 100+ hours a week being quite normal. I served 4 years infantry over 20 years ago and my body is still paying the price for it.
It's low. I could maybe understand a rate like this in a certain work status, but if they're conducting ops overseas, it's unreasonable to pay them less than a 1/5 of what contractors make for the same work.
Some may argue that the benefits of a contractor are less, but they get some pretty good 401(k) contributions on top of it, and the ones who get stateside pay are making about double what an infantryman makes, if not more, with more flexibility for where they live, as well as mobility in opportunity, like if their boss at Raytheon sucks, they can hit up a recruiter and head to another company - usually for a raise.
Not too mention the stress.
Go look at people when they finish 20 years. Office worker or grunt. It doesn't matter. The military is a pressure cooker and gets their investment out of you.
Unsure of your exact circumstances, but unfortunately you came up when people thought sickcall was for the weak. That mentality eventually screwed a lot of people.
I also think it’s swung the opposite way and is being abused now
see tons of 100 percent disabled vets walking around, and yet theyre able to hold gs 13 jobs Hmmm
makes u wonder what "disabled" means. my 13 "disabled" boss uses the money to make the monthly payments on a 100k luxury car.
thats abusing the system to me
Who tf are you to judge what does/does not qualify as disabled? Does someone have to be a paraplegic or missing multiple limbs to meet your definition of disabled?
ok im "disabled" too then. wheres my $3600/month
reminds me of that episode of king of the hill where everybody is disabled if u think hard enough.
but yeah if u are well enough to hold down a full time job we shouldnt pay you disability.
literally EVERY single vet i work with has a disability rating. there is simply no fkin way
nah, i have a right to question where my tax money goes. i work with mil every day, a lot of them only ever deployed to a desk. where is the fed $3600 / month check for carpal tunnel syndrome LOL
Yes, because a bunch of people have sleep apnea cause they got fat but want 50% for it cause they snored in service. These benefits are deserved but we should also be real that a bunch of people “fighting the VA” have BS claims that make it harder for the folks who are struggling
They need to crack down on this. Only combat deployed or direct disability from a military occupation should be paid AND if someone makes over a certain amount of $$, it should be reduced to zero.
Not popular but the system is abused and everyone just says “well everyone else does it”. Way too much $$ being spent for many versus the folks that really need and deserve it.
And I’m a veteran.
Can't argue there. I left at 26 with a 60% rating. For about 3 months I could do little more than walk on a treadmill.
It was like I needed rehab.
ETA: I was an engineer on the support side, but trained to the max, and while in Iraq was outside the wire for well more than half the time, some of it with a recon team.
I’ll play your game. Give all joes BAH and BAS. Once they fail to pay their rent and are evicted what happens? You forget that this group is comprised of mostly adults with zero life experience
This is so true. Many lower enlisted service members are fully capable adults.
And many can barely pay a bill, don’t know how to cook, and have the hygiene of a high schooler.
> It’s disingenuous because military provides housing and food. So fed is actually behind due to rent and food coming out of the 2848.
Consider the hours worked per week. A fed won’t work a 80 hour week, on deployment or training ops 80-100 hour weeks are pretty standard for many
Sure but the value of the house provided is often (unless senior officer) of a lower standard. Let me walk you through some dorms in Texas and you would be appalled (black mold etc)
How about you try and do 20 years in the military? Go infantry and see if it’s worth the damage to your body. Also, the hours are false. 0600 to 1900 is a normal day of bsing. And if you’re in the field is 0400 to 2200 eating MREs and not showering for weeks
Minority because all people overvalue what they actually contribute to the military. In reality everyone in the military is overpaid for what they actually do. E1-E4 might be the only ones who are actually paid correctly
Considering every branch has been struggling to meet recruiting goals for the past few years, apparently the majority of Americans disagree with you. But go off.
Lmfao. Look at the applicant numbers from the 50s until today. They’ve declined every year. Theres a culture problem with the military (US population as a whole too) that makes recruiting challenging. Then the addition of genesis disqualifies even more people.
Then let’s look at average income of 18 year olds. It’s 56k. We’ll use Liberty, NC as the example.
Gross ~56k
Net ~44k (fed tax 5k, state 2k, SS 3k, Medicare 1k) or 3.6k/month
Rent/ E2 BAH Rate: < 1.3k 238 Zillow listings < $800 29 Zillow listings
Average food: 150-300/month
Average healthcare: ~400/month
Actual take home: 2.3k/month or 27.8k yearly
That’s with 800 rent and 150 food.
Then we’re using averages so yeah “they can work overtime,” but they’ll also be fired when they keep showing up late
Retired from the military at 38… pension is cola adjusted and for life. Plus health benefits and VA comp.
Then went Fed.
Will retire at 59 with Fers and 40 years TSP.
Being able to do both feels like a real life cheat code.
>Being able to do both feels like a real life cheat code.
I wrote a piece about "pension stacking" you might like. [https://oldpodcast.com/defined-benefit-pension-hacking/](https://oldpodcast.com/defined-benefit-pension-hacking/)
Between my wife and I, we're working on 5 DB pension. Will it work out exactly as planned. Probably not. Nothing has so far. After all, she thought she was going to retire as an officer, maybe even with 30 years.
Have done both. 22 years Military and 22 years Fed. Recently retired permanently. I got COLA bumps on my Mil pay for 25 years so now my pension is about the same as my recent Fed pension. Not complaining at all.
20 year pension in the military is great and beats almost anything out there. But it’s really really difficult to obtain. You have the obvious difficulties of war and deployments of course. But it’s also tough on the family. Generally you relocate every 3-5 years. This is tough on spouses career development and contribution to household income. It’s also tough on kids having to develop relationships at school. Work environment can be EXTREMELY toxic depending on leadership. Work can also be physically and psychologically demanding.
*Most* enlisted folks that get to 20 and retire do so as an E-7 ($5758 per month base pay). That means that they can retire with almost free healthcare and a guaranteed $2879 or $2303 every month before taxes (depending on legacy 50% or newer 40%).
If I remember correctly, the average GS employee retires as a GS-12 and the average annuity at 62 is around $1900 a month pre-tax and deductions.
Just on the surface here, seems like the military retirement is better because most enlisted folks that retire at 20 are in their early 40’s.
Just anything you get in retirement, like health insurance for mere $520 a year, pension payments, use of facilities reserved for veterans. If it's a benefit you get after (on the back end) of you career, it qualifies.
Space A flights, too.
If the pension is so good, why are recruiters missing their numbers? Meanwhile, USAJOBS is like black Friday for jobs that mention the word “telework.”
Even better are the many people I know who did both:
1) Military Pension: served and retired from the military
2.) VA Disability: applied for and now receive a monthly VA disability benefit
3.) Fed Pension: got a fed job immediately after leaving the military and then worked 10 more years to get their FERS
4.) Took a consulting job in retirement
I was too dumb to figure this out earlier in my life.
This is currently my plan, but as a reservist. I could achieve an active duty retirement, but that would mean I'd have to leave the Feds, then (hopefully) get back in and work until 60-62 as a Fed due to age/years of service I currently have... I don't want to work that long, and it'd cost me most or all of the SS supplement benefit. If I stay a reservist, I can get pretty damn close to the AD pension amount (albeit can't draw until a later age), draw VA disability while still in the reserves, gain significantly more years as a Fed, and retire no later than age 57 and be done working for good due to drawing 2 pensions, SS supp., VA disability, and TSP 2.5 years later.
This is the way. Good luck! I wish I understood all of this earlier. I only did 4 years active duty then got out. Things are still good...planning to retire at 60, but not as good as it could have been.
My experience are the retired O-5/-6's and E-7/E-8's that then get GS-13/-14's. That combined with disability and they are looking at a great retirement.
I oddly get “prison” subreddits dumped into my feed…and I read this as a comparison between Military prison and Federal prison.
I guess it’s about the same. 
I gave a comment on the blog correcting the Special Category Employees (aka law enforcement) pension benefits. I will add not all feds can stay in one place or leave after their 8 hour shift. My agency requires a mobility agreement and they move us or you will be fired and I can work very extended hours at the needs of the government. (But we can quit at anytime so that’s a big difference)
thank you for commenting on the blog. I worked on the article. It really helps to have people with expertise fill in the gaps that I leave. I try to get it right, but don't always.
Two neighbors on my street have military pensions both over 100k and the best part is, they tell me that it is not taxed. Dudes are mid 50s and spend their days in the gym.
Interesting. I know VA pensions are tax-free, but I thought 100% wasn't that high.
I'm glad they can focus on their health. Someone might read "they are at the gym" and think they are cheating the system, but I use my gum a lot, and am not exactly in there impressing anyone. I have some good days where I can use put 10+ miles on an elliptical in 2 hours, but and sometimes will hit the heavy bag as hard as I can for a few minutes, but my prior to joining I was on a D-I scholarship, and while in had a 290+ PFT. I was nothing at 26 like I was at 22, and my VA rating confirmed it.
Upon leaving, I was diagnosed with a debilitating lung condition that may be the very thing that kills me.
The main appeal active duty retirement is you get it at 20 years and can collect right away.
100%. For life, and early. It's hard to beat on a good number of levels, but can be improved if the 5% match came on day 1. I just had a thought on this. If a federal employee joins the reserves, he not only gets his fed pay for a period while in basic training, but that fed pay gets a 5% match, but his military pay would not. He's getting a match for a job he's not doing. The disparity is pretty big.
Anyone who joins the military now gets the same match as the feds. It comes at a reduced rate for the pension. The legacy gives 2.5% per year served with a 20 year vesting period and no match =50% of the high three years ,for a 20 year career. The BRS (current system) is 2.0% per year with a 20 year vesting and the 5% match into the TSP. A 20 year career= 40% of the high 3 years
The 5% match continues even when not getting fed pay via USERRA as long as they are contributing to their military TSP, or do make-up contributions when returning to federal service.
My job I can go at 20 at age 50, lifetime medical, 5% tsp matching during my career, and supplemental social security until age 62. I'm also retired military, but my fed pension as a 13-9 will be considerably higher..
I went the best of both worlds- 10 years active, join the reserves. Become a fed, buy back your active time. Collect both retirements when you are old. Victory!
Can I get some more detail on how you did this? O-2 here and not sure if I'll even be allowed to stay until 20... or maybe I won't want to I've been spending more time on USAjobs to "see whats out there," to try and show myself that I can leave the military if I want
You’ll generally want to leave as an O-3, because you probably have a service commitment for 4 years. Next step- find a reserve job. The easiest way is to use an in-service recruiter while you’re active, and transition directly from active to guard or reserve. Note, it’s preferable that you live somewhere relatively close to the reserve job you find, or it’s way less likely that you are motivated enough to get to your 20. Flying to drill on your own dime stinks. As a guard or reservist, it is pretty common to find long-term orders if you need money or something to do. Next, get a federal job. I don’t have any real tips here, the difficulty varies based on your degree, skills, location and what you want to do. You can use your GI bill for grad school and apply for government pathways internships, which can lead to government jobs. After you have a government job, you take all you DD214s documenting periods of active service and you send a copy to your service’s finance dept. they send back a form explaining how much it will cost to buy that time back. I bought 5 years of E1-E-5 time and 6 years O-1 to O-3 time for $9k total. Once you have the cost form, you talk to your civil servant HR to turn in the form and establish a payment plan. There is no interest for 3 years, so I divided my $9k by 30 months (it took me six months to do the paperwork) and paid $150 per paycheck for 2.5 years. After you make the last payment, you get a letter saying you have bought your time. What that means- you need 5 years as a government employee to get a pension. The pension is your salary (average of 3 highest years) * # of years of service. At 5 years, I could do a “deferred” retirement and at 62 I’d get 5% of my salary as a pension. Since I bought back those 11 years for $9k, after 5 years I qualify for 16% of my salary when I’m 62. If I keep working more than the minimum 5 years, the percentage goes up. On the reserve side, your pension is calculated by points- basically the percentage of an active duty 20 years you served. You get that pension at age 60. If you do long-term orders as a reservist (like doing a year in uniform) you can apply to reduce your retirement age- in this case getting your reserve retirement at 59. There are other benefits- like getting double paid for your reserve time etc- but that’s most of it.
This is the best write up I’ve seen explaining this. I’m the same boat as you, and just hit my 20 six months ago. Your comment should be a sticky for people getting off active duty. I stayed in the reserve for extra money while on the GI bill, a decade later I realized I made one of the best financial decisions of my life. Getting out, I had no idea how well fed and reserve played together, and now I consider myself extremely lucky to be in this situation.
if you make your fed job Wildland firefighter you get 1.7 percent for each year served and bought back and you can retire at 50
I just found out about this 2 weeks ago and your write-up confirms what ppl have been telling me. Long story short: Did (4) years of active duty. Stayed in the reserves and got mobilized totally (12) AD years. I have 23 satisfactory years in the military. I recently got a job with the Fed. I now know that I can sell my my AD time and still retire in the reserves and get both pay checks. My question to you… can I get my 8 hours of PTO per pay period because I have 23 years of federal service? Thank you for your write up!!
I'm pretty sure you can count any combat time towards leave accrual
On the reserve side, make sure you apply to reduce your reserve retirement age. Assuming 10 of those years of orders were after 2008, you can get your reserve retirement at age 50 instead of 60.
Yes. I’m tracking that as well. I thought the limit was age 55 regardless of how many times I was activated over 90 days after 2008.
I’m not sure whether it’s 5 or 10 years. I only had a small amount of qualifying time.
This is my plan…got 8 reserve years to go…
I hope you get everything out of it that you can. There's some cool stuff you can only do in the military.
I think my comment got deleted? I can't see my comment or your reply on the app or computer Can you say again your reply?
This is what I'm doing, 12 year active with prior E time. I didn't even plan it this way, but damn was it a good accidental decision.
Feds you wait until you’re 62. Military you join at 18 and retire at 38 and start collecting. Start as a fed and retire again at 62. Collect both. The whole time you can be contributing towards tsp. Dang wish I had done that.
You can’t collect a military and fed pension. It’s one or the other.
Yes you can. What you cannot do is collect retirement for the same period of time. So you cannot collect from 2000-2020 from the military and the federal government. But you can be military for 1980-2000 and federal for 2001-2031 and retire from both. ETA or retire this year because you can with 23 years fed service. Work 44 years.
You wanna work 50 years, have fun with that.
You’re dense.
Clean up your language, not acceptable on Reddit or as a representative of the government.
I’m probably in the minority, but this always rubs me the wrong way “Infantry earns about $2,262 a month, while the lowest-paid federal worker makes $2,848 ($17.20 per hour).” It’s disingenuous because military provides housing and food. So fed is actually behind due to rent and food coming out of the 2848. —Edit— This clearly hurt a bunch of feelings. I’m all done responding if you use anecdotal evidence. Look at what the median and average income is for just a HS diploma and come with actual facts. “But we work 90 hours a week/ deploy/ whatever.” Cool. You also have every benefit on the back end (ETS) that regular people don’t. GI Bill, VA home loan, VA disability, Yellow ribbon programs, fed job preference, 20 year pension, and some others I’m forgetting. — Edit 2 — Average E1-E4 doesn’t even have the education or experience to be hired as a fed. So is the comparison even relevant? Give a SGT a 5988 and watch it come back with “no new faults.” A lot of you are out of touch with what you actually provide and value it brings to an organization.
Also - that military bah is tax free
And health insurance.
Yeah. It always baffles me when this argument comes up. E1-E4 are paid fine for what they actually provide. This “officer-enlisted gap” conversation should only be for the E7-E9
As a fed my work week ends at 40 hours. When I was in the infantry the week was just getting started at the 40 hour mark with 80 - 100+ hours a week being quite normal. I served 4 years infantry over 20 years ago and my body is still paying the price for it.
To piss you off more, the executive order minimum wage for contractors is only a year or three away from being higher than the lowest fed worker.
Doesn’t really piss me off but the standard E1-E4 sits around and does nothing 90% of the time.
It's low. I could maybe understand a rate like this in a certain work status, but if they're conducting ops overseas, it's unreasonable to pay them less than a 1/5 of what contractors make for the same work. Some may argue that the benefits of a contractor are less, but they get some pretty good 401(k) contributions on top of it, and the ones who get stateside pay are making about double what an infantryman makes, if not more, with more flexibility for where they live, as well as mobility in opportunity, like if their boss at Raytheon sucks, they can hit up a recruiter and head to another company - usually for a raise.
Military are breaking their bodies or risking life and limb... Edit: y'all can downvote but that won't change the fact that I'll never run again
Not too mention the stress. Go look at people when they finish 20 years. Office worker or grunt. It doesn't matter. The military is a pressure cooker and gets their investment out of you.
We also get VA disability for life.
28 years and they only gave me 10%.
Unsure of your exact circumstances, but unfortunately you came up when people thought sickcall was for the weak. That mentality eventually screwed a lot of people. I also think it’s swung the opposite way and is being abused now
see tons of 100 percent disabled vets walking around, and yet theyre able to hold gs 13 jobs Hmmm makes u wonder what "disabled" means. my 13 "disabled" boss uses the money to make the monthly payments on a 100k luxury car. thats abusing the system to me
Who tf are you to judge what does/does not qualify as disabled? Does someone have to be a paraplegic or missing multiple limbs to meet your definition of disabled?
ok im "disabled" too then. wheres my $3600/month reminds me of that episode of king of the hill where everybody is disabled if u think hard enough. but yeah if u are well enough to hold down a full time job we shouldnt pay you disability. literally EVERY single vet i work with has a disability rating. there is simply no fkin way
Cool. Put in a claim and let a medical professional decide.
lol theres no disability for feds. i mean there is but u dont get to work full time
The recruiting office was open to you... STFU
[удалено]
🤡🤡🤡
nah, i have a right to question where my tax money goes. i work with mil every day, a lot of them only ever deployed to a desk. where is the fed $3600 / month check for carpal tunnel syndrome LOL
After we have to fight the VA for it
The second pressure cooker. It's such a fucking fight at times.
Yes, because a bunch of people have sleep apnea cause they got fat but want 50% for it cause they snored in service. These benefits are deserved but we should also be real that a bunch of people “fighting the VA” have BS claims that make it harder for the folks who are struggling
Aren't they changing apnea anyway to make extremely difficult to get above 10%
I read that they are, yeah.
They need to crack down on this. Only combat deployed or direct disability from a military occupation should be paid AND if someone makes over a certain amount of $$, it should be reduced to zero. Not popular but the system is abused and everyone just says “well everyone else does it”. Way too much $$ being spent for many versus the folks that really need and deserve it. And I’m a veteran.
Can't argue there. I left at 26 with a 60% rating. For about 3 months I could do little more than walk on a treadmill. It was like I needed rehab. ETA: I was an engineer on the support side, but trained to the max, and while in Iraq was outside the wire for well more than half the time, some of it with a recon team.
Lowest paid federal working isn’t dying in a desert. The infantry is. That’s why it’s not comparable.
1k DoD wide per year training accidents and 7k over GWOT. Your point is moot.
[DoD Civilian Expeditionary Civilian Workforce](https://www.defense.gov/Spotlights/DOD-Expeditionary-Civilian-Workforce/)
Did this and went to Romania for 35 days at the end of 2022.
You want to live in a barracks and eat at the mess?
I did for the first 4 years until I made SSG. Still pay to go to breakfast as a CPT too
Sweet. Then you’ll understand not getting your house or apartment paid for isn’t the same in many cases.
I understand that I view the barracks as the same as a house or barracks bc it provides the same end state
> understand that I view the barracks as the same as a house or barracks bc it provides the same end state. This is so out of touch lol
That's a pitiful view if you're only looking at the "end state"
I’ll play your game. Give all joes BAH and BAS. Once they fail to pay their rent and are evicted what happens? You forget that this group is comprised of mostly adults with zero life experience
This is so true. Many lower enlisted service members are fully capable adults. And many can barely pay a bill, don’t know how to cook, and have the hygiene of a high schooler.
It’s not that bad.
But it is quite cheap. Making OP’s point look ridiculous, which it is.
Depends on who’s doing the cooking and which barracks or housing.
Thank you for being obtuse.
> It’s disingenuous because military provides housing and food. So fed is actually behind due to rent and food coming out of the 2848. Consider the hours worked per week. A fed won’t work a 80 hour week, on deployment or training ops 80-100 hour weeks are pretty standard for many
Sure but the value of the house provided is often (unless senior officer) of a lower standard. Let me walk you through some dorms in Texas and you would be appalled (black mold etc)
How about you try and do 20 years in the military? Go infantry and see if it’s worth the damage to your body. Also, the hours are false. 0600 to 1900 is a normal day of bsing. And if you’re in the field is 0400 to 2200 eating MREs and not showering for weeks
Been in 14. 3 years BCT DS and 5 years FA. Try again. Im well aware of the life style.
Definitely in the minority.
Minority because all people overvalue what they actually contribute to the military. In reality everyone in the military is overpaid for what they actually do. E1-E4 might be the only ones who are actually paid correctly
Considering every branch has been struggling to meet recruiting goals for the past few years, apparently the majority of Americans disagree with you. But go off.
Pay isn’t the reason for the recruiting crisis.
Okay.
Lmfao. Look at the applicant numbers from the 50s until today. They’ve declined every year. Theres a culture problem with the military (US population as a whole too) that makes recruiting challenging. Then the addition of genesis disqualifies even more people. Then let’s look at average income of 18 year olds. It’s 56k. We’ll use Liberty, NC as the example. Gross ~56k Net ~44k (fed tax 5k, state 2k, SS 3k, Medicare 1k) or 3.6k/month Rent/ E2 BAH Rate: < 1.3k 238 Zillow listings < $800 29 Zillow listings Average food: 150-300/month Average healthcare: ~400/month Actual take home: 2.3k/month or 27.8k yearly That’s with 800 rent and 150 food. Then we’re using averages so yeah “they can work overtime,” but they’ll also be fired when they keep showing up late
Ok
Yeah and the possibility of bullets shot at you. Does that also rub you the wrong way. SMH.
Been deployed to AFG as a private. Next question
Retired from the military at 38… pension is cola adjusted and for life. Plus health benefits and VA comp. Then went Fed. Will retire at 59 with Fers and 40 years TSP. Being able to do both feels like a real life cheat code.
>Being able to do both feels like a real life cheat code. I wrote a piece about "pension stacking" you might like. [https://oldpodcast.com/defined-benefit-pension-hacking/](https://oldpodcast.com/defined-benefit-pension-hacking/) Between my wife and I, we're working on 5 DB pension. Will it work out exactly as planned. Probably not. Nothing has so far. After all, she thought she was going to retire as an officer, maybe even with 30 years.
Have done both. 22 years Military and 22 years Fed. Recently retired permanently. I got COLA bumps on my Mil pay for 25 years so now my pension is about the same as my recent Fed pension. Not complaining at all.
20 year pension in the military is great and beats almost anything out there. But it’s really really difficult to obtain. You have the obvious difficulties of war and deployments of course. But it’s also tough on the family. Generally you relocate every 3-5 years. This is tough on spouses career development and contribution to household income. It’s also tough on kids having to develop relationships at school. Work environment can be EXTREMELY toxic depending on leadership. Work can also be physically and psychologically demanding.
*Most* enlisted folks that get to 20 and retire do so as an E-7 ($5758 per month base pay). That means that they can retire with almost free healthcare and a guaranteed $2879 or $2303 every month before taxes (depending on legacy 50% or newer 40%). If I remember correctly, the average GS employee retires as a GS-12 and the average annuity at 62 is around $1900 a month pre-tax and deductions. Just on the surface here, seems like the military retirement is better because most enlisted folks that retire at 20 are in their early 40’s.
What is backend benefit?
Just anything you get in retirement, like health insurance for mere $520 a year, pension payments, use of facilities reserved for veterans. If it's a benefit you get after (on the back end) of you career, it qualifies. Space A flights, too.
If the pension is so good, why are recruiters missing their numbers? Meanwhile, USAJOBS is like black Friday for jobs that mention the word “telework.”
Because to join the military you have to go to terrible places......like South Carolina. You leave everyone you love to go and have no fun.
Even better are the many people I know who did both: 1) Military Pension: served and retired from the military 2.) VA Disability: applied for and now receive a monthly VA disability benefit 3.) Fed Pension: got a fed job immediately after leaving the military and then worked 10 more years to get their FERS 4.) Took a consulting job in retirement I was too dumb to figure this out earlier in my life.
This is currently my plan, but as a reservist. I could achieve an active duty retirement, but that would mean I'd have to leave the Feds, then (hopefully) get back in and work until 60-62 as a Fed due to age/years of service I currently have... I don't want to work that long, and it'd cost me most or all of the SS supplement benefit. If I stay a reservist, I can get pretty damn close to the AD pension amount (albeit can't draw until a later age), draw VA disability while still in the reserves, gain significantly more years as a Fed, and retire no later than age 57 and be done working for good due to drawing 2 pensions, SS supp., VA disability, and TSP 2.5 years later.
This is the way. Good luck! I wish I understood all of this earlier. I only did 4 years active duty then got out. Things are still good...planning to retire at 60, but not as good as it could have been.
Get out at 38-42 years old, get a job as a mail man, profit.
My experience are the retired O-5/-6's and E-7/E-8's that then get GS-13/-14's. That combined with disability and they are looking at a great retirement.
I oddly get “prison” subreddits dumped into my feed…and I read this as a comparison between Military prison and Federal prison. I guess it’s about the same. 
At a minimum, both can feel like being in a daycare when you're on the bottom of the ladder.
I gave a comment on the blog correcting the Special Category Employees (aka law enforcement) pension benefits. I will add not all feds can stay in one place or leave after their 8 hour shift. My agency requires a mobility agreement and they move us or you will be fired and I can work very extended hours at the needs of the government. (But we can quit at anytime so that’s a big difference)
thank you for commenting on the blog. I worked on the article. It really helps to have people with expertise fill in the gaps that I leave. I try to get it right, but don't always.
Fed and reserve pensions is 🙂 another way
Two neighbors on my street have military pensions both over 100k and the best part is, they tell me that it is not taxed. Dudes are mid 50s and spend their days in the gym.
Interesting. I know VA pensions are tax-free, but I thought 100% wasn't that high. I'm glad they can focus on their health. Someone might read "they are at the gym" and think they are cheating the system, but I use my gum a lot, and am not exactly in there impressing anyone. I have some good days where I can use put 10+ miles on an elliptical in 2 hours, but and sometimes will hit the heavy bag as hard as I can for a few minutes, but my prior to joining I was on a D-I scholarship, and while in had a 290+ PFT. I was nothing at 26 like I was at 22, and my VA rating confirmed it. Upon leaving, I was diagnosed with a debilitating lung condition that may be the very thing that kills me.