Military Retirement on the Chopping Block

General General Discussion
21

They are not proposing cutting retirement benefits to nothing. Just changing it over to a system comparable to most of society gets, and a service member would still get money going to their retirement.

As much as the military can be it doesn’t make any sense whatsoever to pay someone to work for 20 years…which is a little less than half their expected working lifespan, and then pay them for the next 40 years. Towns, counties, ect…are facing a huge pension problem because they promised people pay for twice as long as they actually worked.

If someone gets injured, and the system actually works, they will get disability for the rest of their life. My brother in law gets around 600 a month because he fell out of a truck in motion when the dumbass driver thought it would be funny to jump the truck with people in the back.

22

HAHA. You should see my company’s barracks.

23

fixed it for you

the VA isnt something you want to ever deal with.

24

A few personal observations…same as an opinion :smiley:

The pay is not equal to the civilian sector.

When they say 50% that only means the base pay, not housing, food or any other pay. My annual retirement pay for the past three years before taxes has been just short of $17,000. Nowhere near the retirement plan of many federal and local government employees, firefighters, police and so on.

I retired with 50% after 21 years on active duty. 15 of those years were deployed outside of CONUS. Three of those years were spent on various amphib ships. The amphib ships were designed to transport the troops, they weren’t designed to deploy with the troops for extended periods of time. The living quarters sucked, no if or ands about it. I have lived in condemed barracks at Camp Lejeune, Camp Pendleton, and Camp Schwab. I wasn’t authorized to move out in town until I was a SSgt with 14 years time in service

Medically, my back, neck, and hearing is screwed. My knees are trashed. I picked up parasites that medical thought was destroyed 40 years ago. 20 years of what The Black Knight posted does shorten your life.

The VA system is painfully slow.

From what I read on the article, the government is not ‘matching’ contributions like civilian companies do out here. The service member gets 18% of his pay deducted before he gets it. To me…keep in mind this is IMO…this tells me that the ‘retirement plan’ is not like the 401s out here. The only funding into the servicemember’s account is the service members. This tells me that there is no retirement plan for people in the military.

In the Marines we had service limits; if you didn’t get selected for SSgt by your 13th year you had to get out. If you were substandard in performance, you were forced out. There never was a guarantee that you could do 20 and retire, if you didn’t perform, you couldn’t re-enlist. Usually they forced you out just before you hit the 18 year mark.

With this new ‘retirement’ you can get funds back if you are forced out, no real problem with this because after all the government didn’t put a dime into the ‘retirement.’

I have heard scuttlebutt that many people’s 401 retirement plans lost a substancial amount of funds in the last recession. Is this true?

I have been an exempt employee for 9 years now, 60 hour work weeks are the norm but I can not be paid more that 1872 hours each year. The stress level on myself and the family is nowhere near what it was while I was on active duty. I can walk from this job and get another anytime that I want to.

The government will save a bundle with the new ‘retirement’ because they aren’t putting a dime into it.

If the government really wants to save money, all federal employees should be put on the same ‘retirement’ path. Social Security should be put into the same ‘retirement’ path.

As much as we are currently asking these servicemembers to do, to take away the retirement while everyone else keeps thiers is a kick in the teeth.

It is an all volunteer force but once you sign the dotted line you are no longer a volunteer you serve for the good of the service.

25

When you enlist there is a retirement plan in place that you fall under; one of the problems is that changes are made to it throughout your career and various enlistments. Things like the 50% retirement changing to 40% in the 80’s and Top 3 vs. final pay. Then you have the boondoggle “choice” at the 15 year mark where you can take a lump sum payment now and receive a lower retirement rate at 20 years.
Honestly, the plan doesn’t really matter to me as long as they don’t lessen your retirement plan from when you initially enlist.
If someone wants to enlist with a retirement plan paid in Chicklets; I don’t care as long as both parties(the government and enlistee) agree to it and the government doesn’t decide to change payment form to M&M’s at the enlistee’s 11 year mark.

26

They changed that plan in 1986 and grandfathered it to 7 Sept 1980. I enlisted in Apr 81 so the original 50% was taken away and I ended up retiring with the ‘high three.’ This ended up dropping my retirement pay by $400.00 a month because now it was the average of the last three years.

Each time that I re-enlisted it was a new contract so even though I came in before 1986, my retirement fell under that modification.

This is the way they give apparently correct information but it really is a false lead. Nobody that came in after 1980 gets the “50%”.

27

The first enlistment is only for so many years + 8 mandatory obligation be it active or inactive. It doesn’t cover anything out to 20 years except for whats listed, and retirement isnt one of them. If the member doesn’t like changes to the retirement then they can simply not reeinlist.

The main obligation the government has when people enlist is the GI bill, and which people pay the first 12 months of service for I think $100 a month. Been almost 10 years since then for me but since you actually pay for it (you can decline it, too), and sign the GI Bill documents when you sign that would be an obligation for. Simply signing up for one enlistment when the current benefits are XYZ 20 years from now doesn’t mean the gov is bound to that when things change, and 3-4 enlistments from then things are different. Only when you sign the actual (re)enlistment documents at the time you are due to be of retirement TIS.

28

That ended with the new 9/11 GI Bill. Now the servicemember doesn’t pay into it. They rate a 4 year education and if they don’t use it they can pass it to thier children.

29

I don’t know much about that. When I came in I paid into it, and if we wanted to increase it we had to pay again.

I haven’t even done anything with mine, yet, because Ive been waiting on the wife to finish nursing school.

30

My thoughts exactly. We can afford to subsidize crime in this country (through welfare, SSI, etc.) but not our military?.. that’s convoluted thinking.

31

No matter our fiscal stance at the time it makes ZERO sense to pay someone to work 60 years when they actually only work 20 of those years.

If someone has a disability they should be paid an appropriate amount, and receive care for the injury until its either no longer an issue or they die.

I don’t care what the job is…if you come out of working somewhere 20 years…you shouldn’t be paid for 40 more years while not working. Military service is supposed to be self sacrifice and putting others before you…not doing 20 years and expecting pay for 40 more. Wheres the self sacrifice in only wanting to work for 20 years…then get paid for 40 more years?

If you get injured or otherwise become disabled, yes, you should be paid. In my experience both the docs and your COC will do everything they can to skip out on that including the old fucker on your discharge physical who has denied legitimate claims his entire life on behalf of the mil.

32

Almost correct; except not quite. From your very first enlistment you are covered under the current retirement plan for planning purposes and like has been mentioned with high year tenure plans in place if you’re not performing and getting promoted you’re not staying forever.
I never said they are currently bound; I said they should be. Saying if you don’t like the new policies don’t re-enlist sounds good until you hit the 16-18 year mark and are on your last enlistment and they start making changes to something they agreed to in several contracts and you’ve been designing your exit strategy around.
I don’t want them giving more than was in place when you started playing the game; I also don’t want them giving less than they agreed. The retirement plan is a selling point just like the GI Bill.

FWIW; I haven’t told someone they should stay until retirement for quite a while. My retirement was final 1 Jun after 24 years; I made more money this month than I made in any month in the military and only worked 5 days this month. Retiring was the best thing I’ve done financially. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my time, but I wouldn’t do it over again.

33

I leeches should be cut first…but again…it makes zero sense for anyone to be paid for 60 years for 20 years worth of work. I would rather see improvements in treating injured people…both mentally and physically…and not have COC’s accusing their soldiers of malingering when the whole back side of their neck is numb and they are getting headaches 5 days a week from neurological problems…such as in my case.

34

Maybe it worked differently where you were at but people signed reenlistments early on basically “at the needs of the army” to stay signed up until retirement. I never saw anyone reenlist at the 18 year mark.

I think, if this plan is enacted, those within X number of years should get the retirement benefits as they are today…which is sounds like is part of the deal. Those who have reenlisted to retirement currently should still get what the benefits are today. Those out of reenlistment range, and those just joining would not get the current benefits if enacted.

There are a lot of things that change during enlistment…COLA, per diem, housing rates, ect.

35

I hate the source, but the info is actually pretty good concerning the differences between Defined Benefit Plan and Defined Contribution Plans.

http://seiu1000.org/research/defined_benefit_retirement_plans.pdf

36

A lot of people reenlist at the 18 and beyond year mark depending on they cycle of your enlistments. Heck I had to extend for 1 month because you can’t retire in the middle of the month and I needed 12 days to hit the 1st of the month. I enlisted for 4 years at the 19 year mark because various extensions through the years for training put my re-enlistment time at the 19 year point.
COLA, per diem, housing allowances have nothing to do with retirement.

Your statement about putting a program in place I 100% agree with, but it doesn’t always work that way for example health and dental care.

37

You know what would make me happy?

TSP matching and the abolition of the VA system, combined with a voucher system for medical disability.

38

Belmont,

You know that I respect your views, but I think it’s probably time that we dial down the “work 20, get paid for 60” rhetoric.

I’m not sure where we ever decided to go down the path of comparing 20 years of military service to 20 years in any other industry in terms of physical wear-and-tear, deprivation, danger-to-life, family separation and overall risk exposure, but neither am I interested in debating the point here.

I do think, however, that we need to look a bit closer at how long our military retirees are actually living, because even with access to improved healthcare, it isn’t typically anywhere close to 40 years. For every octagenarian you can point to who is collecting his 38th year of retirement, I can probably show you three or four guys who didn’t even make it 15 years into theirs. I’ll admit this an anecdotal example, but let’s not pretend that any of the current debate is about the fundamental rightness or wrongness of the military pension system when we all know that it is really about the DoD desperately looking for ways to survive some extremely aggressive budget cuts.

AC

39

Just saying I never saw it.

But I think this plan already has those types in mind, and it wouldn’t be such a quick change. It said those already in would still receive current benefits or at least a mix of the two. Id hope those within a few years of retiring would still be elegible for the current benefits, and say those 8+ years out would get a mix of the two. Those currently enlisting would get the new program from the start.

Trust I don’t think cutting off current benefits for those with 18 years in is the right move…just saying down the line we can’t keep paying for 20 years worth of work for 60 years total. I think a 16-20 matching contribution into the TSP is fair enough, and would give members a more realistic outlook towards retirement. Overall I think the days of this work for 20 years but get paid for 60 are limited, and not even the mil is off that block. I fully support treating wounded/disabled people, and had my own fight with that. I just don’t think working 20 years, even in a tough field, should mean lifetime payments that work, out, on average, twice fold what you actually worked (disability payments not included). You’re supposed to join as a service to our country not a lifetime paycheck no matter what, and theres tons of mother fuckers in there who never deployed or did shit. My last 1SG was a cock sucker who hid in training commands, and by the time he got to us we had PFC’s with more deployment or even just OCONUS time than him which in his case would be ZERO for both. I had two deployments already coming into this command as an E4, ready for promotion, and that MF’er used to walk around calling SFC’s ‘private’ he was so used to calling everyone that because he spent 3-4 years in some training unit dealing with recruits all day. Id gladly have retirement pay be based, at least partially, on OCONUS duty and also eminent danger pay locations. Let those fuckers who rot in training units and logistics stateside get jack shit at retirement.

40

People are paid during deployment for family separation, hazardous duty, ect. That is the “reward” for being put in that position.

I think the real problem with military pay is if you are married or have kids or both. Id like to see pay equal regardless of marital status or having kids. A married dude on deployment could make twice as much as me if not more especially when it came to tax time. Id have to pay taxes while married guys would get 4-5k “back” in rebates. If theres one thing that needs to be correlated to the civilian side its that.