An Overview of Past Proposals for Military Retirement Reform PDF Download

Author: John Christian
Publisher: Rand Corporation
ISBN: 0833039873
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 41

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Book Description
By one estimate, between fiscal years 1995 and 2005, total compensation costs for current and former military personnel increased by almost 60 percent. The military retirement benefit remains a significant portion of these costs, and every change to accessions, retention, and basic pay today will have a future effect on pension expenditures. This technical report provides an overview of the history of U.S. military retirement studies and associated legislation, with a particular focus on the past 60 years of proposed reforms. It is organized around the following five major issues that have driven attempts at retirement system reform: cost, equity, selective retention, civilian comparability, and force management flexibility. The author finds that cost alone is reason to analyze the current retirement system, and reform proposals of the past have focused carefully on cost. However, he also finds that, as the military's mission evolves over time, it is also important to consider the sometimes subtle incentive effects that the retirement system has on service member behavior. Beyond considerations of cost, reform of the military retirement system necessarily involves ramifications for force structure and operational readiness.

Author: Beth J. Asch
Publisher: Rand Corporation
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Using the Dynamic Retention Model, this report evaluates the Military Compensation and Retirement Modernization Commission's proposed reforms to military compensation and retirement, especially their ability to sustain the current force size/shape.

Author: United States. Congress. House. Committee on Armed Services. Subcommittee on Military Personnel
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 116

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Author: Jefferey A. Gibert
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Military pensions
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The U.S. military plays a vital role in implementing the National Security Strategy by providing a trained, equipped, and ready force which enables national leaders to call on it as an instrument of power. As the 21st century approaches, advances in technology and other capabilities are driving a fundamental transformation of our military forces and creating a need for personnel with a variety of highly specialized skills. Compensation plays an important role in enabling the military to sustain a trained and ready force. Congress enacted The Military Retirement Reform Act of l986 as a means to save money and induce more members to continue their service beyond 20 years, thereby giving us a more experienced and capable career force. Recently conducted surveys, however, cite great soldier dissatisfaction with today's retirement system. This study examines the current military retirement system and analyzes the feasibility of augmenting it with a savings plan similar to the 401(k) plan. This analysis of the military retirement system considers the criteria of cost, effect on retention, and ability to enhance personal financial stability.

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 92

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Book Description
This report applies the models developed in earlier RAND reports (Asch and Warner 1994A, 1994B) to analyze the effects of converting the military retirement system to a system very similar to the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS), which is the system that covers federal civil service employees. The authors analyze several versions of this system, named the Military Federal Employees Retirement System, or MFERS. To compensate for the mandatory contributions, MFERS would be coupled with a pay raise. To the extent that the MFERS system failed to create the retention and separation patterns needed to achieve the services' desired seniority profiles, it would also include a system of retention bonuses and/or separation payments. The authors consider the implications of this proposal in terms of the effects on cost, force size and structure, productivity, and force management flexibility.

Author: Committee on Committee on Armed Services United States Senate
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781512017649
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 118

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Book Description
The Bipartisan Budget Act (BBA) of 2013 included a provision that reduced the cost-of-living adjustments (COLA) for working age military retirees by 1 percent until the retiree reaches the age of 62, at which time retired pay is adjusted to the level it would have been had the COLA not been reduced. In a USA Today column defending the legislation, Congressman Paul Ryan explained the provision as follows: "We make no changes for those currently at or above age 62. This reform affects only younger military retirees. Right now any person who has served 20 years can retire regardless of age. That means a serviceman who enlists at 18 becomes eligible for retirement at 38." The Consolidated Appropriations Act amended the BBA to exempt disability retirees and their survivors from the COLA reduction. The COLA reduction is wrong because it targets a single group, military retirees, to help address the budget problems of the Federal Government as a whole. While reforms have been made to the Federal civilian pension, those changes applied prospectively to new employees. By contrast, this change to military pensions will apply upon implementation to current retirees, their families, and survivors.

Author: Beth J. Asch
Publisher: Rand Corporation
ISBN: 9780833024633
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 81

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Book Description
The current military retirement system dates back to 1947, when Congress implemented a common system for the military services and for officers and enlisted personnel alike.

Author: Brandon J. Archuleta
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700629769
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
Military pension policies are as old as the republic itself and reside at the intersection of American social, economic, and defense policy. But as the nation’s social and economic circumstances underwent dramatic changes over the last half century, military pension policy remained static, stuck in the personnel and retirement model of the industrial age. This book examines why. Integrating policy history, theory, and practice, Twenty Years of Service provides the most comprehensive examination of US military pension policy in a generation. Brandon J. Archuleta sets the stage with an exploration of the rise, evolution, and transformation of the veterans’ policy subsystem from the American Revolution through World War II. The ensuing theoretical overview explains how the military personnel policy subsystem achieved the autonomy it enjoyed from 1948 to 2018; it also offers a new perspective on autonomous policy subsystems in general, which helps to account for the long-term pension policy stasis. In practical terms, Archuleta explores the role of the successful 2015 Military Compensation and Retirement Modernization Commission as an institutional venue for policy change during the congressional budget battles of the 2010s. Through extensive archival research, illustrative case studies, and field interviews with Pentagon bureaucrats, congressional staffers, veterans’ lobbyists, defense scholars, and journalists, Twenty Years of Service brings the policymaking process to life. Its insights will prove invaluable to policy scholars and defense practitioners alike.

Author: Beth J. Asch
Publisher: Rand Corporation
ISBN: 0833078127
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 135

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Book Description
As the burden of defense borne by reserve forces has increased, more attention has been paid to differences between the compensation systems for the reserve and active components. One particular emphasis is on the retirement systems, a key difference being that reserve members who complete 20 years must wait until age 60 to draw benefits whereas active members can draw benefits immediately upon discharge. This monograph compares the reserve and active retirement systems, discusses the importance of structuring compensation to enable flexibility in managing active and reserve manpower, describes how the debate over reserve retirement reform has differed from active component retirement reform debate, and considers obstacles to reform and how they might be overcome. It also provides a quantitative assessment of several past congressional proposals to change the reserve retirement system in terms of their effects on reserve participation and personnel costs, concluding that proposals to reduce the age at which eligible members may begin receiving retirement benefits are not cost-effective means of sustaining or increasing reserve component retention. It also concludes that a menu of member options can be a powerful tool to maintain morale and overcome obstacles to reform. Current members could be given the choice of staying in the current retirement system or joining the new one, and the choice might be offered over a period of time, say five years. New entrants and reentrants with few years of service might be placed under the new system.

Author: United States. Congress
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781981750955
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 112

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Book Description
Military retirement reform : hearing before the Subcommittee on Military Personnel of the Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives, One Hundred Twelfth Congress, first session, hearing held October 25, 2011.