Is the military paying troops too much? Yes and no, study finds
Stack of cash, money. Istockphoto by Stefan Klein
The military has been paying service members much more than the minimum benchmark it set decades ago, according a Pentagon-funded study, so it should probably raise the benchmark.
For roughly the past 20 years, the Defense Department has set its uniformed pay grades at about the 70th percentile, meaning 70 percent of civilian jobs that require similar levels of experience and education pay less than the military, and 30 percent pay more. But as part of a regular review of the compensation system, Rand Corp. experts suggest updating that policy.