Many of the recommendations found in DoD’s latest look at military pay and benefits echoed MOAA’s advocacy efforts to secure compensation improvements and a better overall quality of life for those who serve.

The congressionally mandated 14th Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation (QRMC), released last week, serves as a cornerstone of the continuing discussion on military compensation and sets the stage for many of MOAA’s legislative goals. While the report is due every four years, the marker that kicks off DoD’s work is a memorandum from the president detailing specific issues to examine. Past reports have been limited in their scope; for the first time, this QRMC took a more expansive look at dual-income households and the real-world challenges facing servicemembers and their families.

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Some of the QRMC findings:

• A Step Above: The report found servicemembers are better compensated, on average, than their civilian peers. Given the high standards of the military and the low propensity to serve, this finding is expected; this level of compensation is necessary to recruit and retain the all-volunteer force.
  
  
• An Unstable Setup: Despite the high compensation level, the report raises concerns over “pay volatility.” Methods used to determine housing allowances and cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs, found overseas and in high-cost U.S. regions), to include frequent surveys and flawed models, lead to large increases and decreases in pay that negatively affect servicemembers and their families when their duty location changes.  
  
  
• Valuing ‘Noncash Compensation’: The QRMC recognized benefits such as housing, health care, and child care, as well as morale, welfare, and recreation (MWR) programs, for role they play in our community. Its authors found that “targeted noncash compensation may offer better returns on investment” for servicemembers and military families.

This last, important finding follows with what MOAA and other military service organizations have been saying about these programs and their impact on quality of life issues. MOAA was able to testify before the House Armed Services (HASC) Quality of Life panel, which included many of our recommendations in its report. Many of the report’s recommendations were adopted as part of the FY 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

QRMC Recommendations

The panel report proved valuable for DoD, and the QRMC recommended “a periodic quality-of-life review” that could “inform the Department of trends in the quality of noncash compensation and benefits to assist in targeting investments.” 

Additionally, the QRMC report called for expanding a MOAA-backed provision that would offer tax credits to small businesses for waiving retirement vesting periods for military spouse employees. Current law restricts these tax credits to businesses with less than 100 employees.

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The report also recommends a review of entitlements for deployed servicemembers – another recommendation in support of MOAA’s advocacy work. Combat-zone tax exemptions work as an additional tool to recognize the service and sacrifice of those in harm’s way, but this designation is not reviewed regularly, meaning hotspots like Africa are not given the tax exemptions while places where servicemembers no longer serve remain on the list.

The report also identified areas for improvement in housing allowance and COLA calculation. MOAA highlighted the need for these improvements to the HASC Quality of Life panel given the volatility many servicemembers and families experienced, especially during the pandemic.

The QRMC also recommended:

• Updating the regular military compensation benchmark from the 70th to the 75th percentile.
• Improving communications with servicemembers regarding their total compensation package and its comparative quality to comparable civilians.
• Improving “constructive credit” afforded to lateral entrants who join the military with already established and much-needed skill sets, such as surgeons.

The QRMC is a valuable resource for MOAA’s advocacy work and when its recommendations align with our priorities, we will work to advance them. To stay current on MOAA’s work, be sure to sign up for the Legislative Action Center and subscribe to The MOAA Newsletter.