Besides being another crazy acronym from the U.S. government, the QRMC is the Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation—a hard look at military pay and benefits once every four years.
Under the lawful provisions of section 1008(b) of title 37, United States Code, every 4 years the President is required to complete a review of the compensation system for the uniformed service members of the Department of Defense, the Coast Guard, and the commissioned corps of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Public Health Service. The president is required by law to initiate the review, and the Secretary of Defense is named as the Executive Agent to conduct the review.
At the completion of the quadrennial review, the president is required to submit to Congress a report of the review and any recommendations for proposed changes.
The overall goal of the QRMC is to ensure that service members are paid competitively alongside their civilian peers and marketplace, and that they can afford the necessities of life. It also looks under the benefits tent to ensure that the benefits offered to service members is adequate for attracting and retaining service members.
On January 31, 2023, President Biden directed the 14th such review and named Secretary Austin as its Executive Agent.[1] The president asked the Defense Secretary to focus on the following for this iteration of the review:
(1) Review military compensation and benefits, including special pay, to ensure the Department of Defense is appropriately compensating service members while remaining responsible stewards of the funds provided by American taxpayers;
(2) Review the military basic pay table to ensure it is structured to further strengthen service members’ economic security and enhance the Department of Defense’s ability to recruit and retain the Nation’s finest;
(3) Evaluate military compensation and its current benchmark to determine how a shift toward dual-income households and the unique factors affecting military household incomes might require structural changes, to include the development of a new benchmark for military compensation. This evaluation should include, but is not limited to, consideration of factors such as the challenge of military spouse unemployment, frequent military moves, periods of geographic separation between service members and their spouses (including dual military couples), and childcare access and cost;
(4) Review the statutory requirements and current methodologies used to calculate housing, subsistence, and cost-of-living allowances, including the Basic Needs Allowance, to ensure service members are food secure and able to procure suitable housing; and
(5) Review military compensation relative to anticipated future requirements in technology and other fields that are critical to the Department of Defense.
The president required the Defense Secretary to submit his report not later than January 31, 2025. Suffice it to say, the Defense Department, along with representatives from other Federal agencies, are knee-deep in their deliberations and are making a valiant attempt to render an on-time report. Past year’s reports can be located on this website maintained by the Department: https://militarypay.defense.gov/References/QRMC/.
The Congress and the president asked the 14th Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation to study the implications of moving from the current system of military compensation, involving pay and tax-free allowances, to a salary system that eliminates the allowances. This presentation outlines an initial analysis of what adoption of a salary system could mean for Service member take-home pay, cost to the Department of Defense DoD, and cost to the federal government. The Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) analyzed the impact of a single salary system in 2019 and published their findings in September 2020.[2]
Seventeen military service organizations provided input to the Defense Department for the 14th QRMC. Specifically, they addressed:
(1) A review of the compensation package against household income reported by U.S. census data.
(2) Modernize the housing allowance (BAH) formula to include utilities and flexibility for high costs areas within the continental U.S.
(3) Restore the housing allowance (BAH) to cover 100% of the median cost of housing and not the current 95%.
(4) Removing barriers that exist in State-run programs like WIC and consider advance enrollment in WIC programs when PCSing.[3]
You can rest assured that EANGUS is fully monitoring the actions of the 14th QRMC and submitting input concerning the National Guard. As the review progresses, EANGUS will provide you updates so that you will be informed about its progress and what it means to you and your family.
[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2023/01/31/memorandum-on-fourteenth-quadrennial-review-of-military-compensation/
[2] https://www.ida.org/-/media/feature/publications/a/an/analysis-of-a-salary-based-pay-system-for-the-quadrennial-review-of-military-compensation/d-13204.ashx
[3] https://www.mfan.org/blog/mfan-msos-provide-input-for-14th-qrmc/
— EANGUS NATIONAL OFFICE
