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Old 09-21-2022, 08:53 AM
 
Location: Texas Hill Country
23,627 posts, read 13,823,340 times
Reputation: 18822

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Quote:
Originally Posted by kj1065 View Post
This is not a new problem. Years ago, I knew a young military family that used WIC to ensure they had enough to eat.
Indeed, I remember things like during the Cold War under Carter.
Quote:
Originally Posted by beachmouse View Post
Should have joined the Air Force instead. Local AF housing allowance is up to about $2K a month on top of paycheck for a lowly E-1. Split a two bedroom rental (about $2200-$2400) with a pal and you’ve got a decent fun budget after basic expenses are paid.
Something like that. When I was a financial counselor in the Navy in the late Cold War, the basic problem was that people were eating fast food as their diet on their food allowance.....and they did not know it was cheaper to buy raw goods and prepare food at home. Off hand, I would say that the young not knowing how to keep house has always been a problem.

 
Old 09-21-2022, 08:54 AM
 
Location: Middle of the valley
48,415 posts, read 34,593,681 times
Reputation: 73524
There have always been soldier's families receiving SNAP benefits. Why the outrage just now?
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Old 09-21-2022, 08:55 AM
 
Location: Metro Detroit, Michigan
29,694 posts, read 24,763,642 times
Reputation: 28376
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rocko20 View Post
https://www.foxnews.com/us/army-sugg...ling-inflation

Wow, and we wonder why the military is having recruiting problems? This is just sad, we send more to Ukraine than we'll give to our own troops.

A lot of our workforce is subsidized by welfare and has been for years. And for years, newly enlisted soldiers with families were paid so little, they qualified for food stamps. Why are some of America's hardest working people also the lowest paid??? I recall reading almost a decade ago that 1/3rd of our nation's manufacturing workers were on food stamps. Can't win a war without soldiers and manufacturing, so shouldn't we treat and pay these people a little better??? What a backwards country we have become.
 
Old 09-21-2022, 09:01 AM
 
Location: Niceville, FL
13,258 posts, read 22,738,840 times
Reputation: 16414
Quote:
Originally Posted by andywire View Post
A lot of our workforce is subsidized by welfare and has been for years. And for years, newly enlisted soldiers with families earned so little they qualified for food stamps. Why are some of America's hardest working people also the lowest paid??? What a backwards country we have become.
Pay check is often a very small part of total military compensation. One of my cousins was an Army nurse married to another Army nurse. Their last posting before retirement was in Hawaii where they were getting something like $5500/month in housing allowance on top of their salaries. And then they retired, and had to sell that house, and moved to Florida (cash purchase from the equity in the Hawaii house) because they couldn’t afford to live in Hawaii as civilians.

Both of them also enlisted after high school trying to figure out adulthood and the Army fully paid for nursing school, which can be a good paycheck back in the civilian world after retirement, even part time. The military experience is often what you make of it.
 
Old 09-21-2022, 09:02 AM
 
Location: On the Chesapeake
45,089 posts, read 60,158,471 times
Reputation: 60681
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mikala43 View Post
There have always been soldier's families receiving SNAP benefits. Why the outrage just now?
I think because it now appears to be official Army policy.

As it is, in 2019, which is the last year for which there are statistics, about 1.5% of military members received SNAP. Now of course that was before the inflation we've been seeing for a couple years now.

There is a reason all branches of the military discourage their E-3s and below from getting married.

I was one of the few people who was married in my OCS class over forty years ago. I was a bit older, though, 26/27 compared to 22/23 of most of the others. We did have a married couple who were in consecutive classes.
 
Old 09-21-2022, 09:06 AM
 
28,619 posts, read 18,658,429 times
Reputation: 30894
Junior enlisted military personnel have had to use government assistance for many decades. Depending on the cost of living where they're stationed, it can be worse than that. Heck, when I was an E-8 stationed in Hawaii, I could have qualified for government assistance (primarily because they only considered base pay).

For sure, the military has never paid junior enlisted (below E-5) enough to support a family. Back in the day when I was an Army brat, that was well understood, and junior enlisted avoided marriage.

That idea wavered in the 70s as women entered the workforce in large numbers. Then a working wife made marriage possible for junior enlisted.

Medical benefits make it all the more enticing, because the cost of giving birth in a military hospital is (or at least was) no more than the cost of the mother's meals for the three days she spent in the hospital. That was like 30 bucks compared to thousands of dollars in a civilian hospital.

The military trap, though, is reassignment. Working wives--even those with good jobs--wind up out of work for six months or more when the military member is assigned to another stateside base. They often aren't ready for that loss of income. If he gets assigned overseas, wives usually can't resume working at all because of SOFA agreements with the host countries. And even if they can resume working at the new assignment, they've lost seniority.

My wife was a special education teacher while I was active duty, so she was always able to get work when we moved, even overseas (teachers in the DODDS schools are an exception to the SOFA rules). But she always started at the bottom again every time we moved.
 
Old 09-21-2022, 09:11 AM
 
Location: Newport Beach, California
39,028 posts, read 27,438,416 times
Reputation: 15945
Even when my brother was an e1 in the Marines, he had spending money every month. His co told all of them not to get married, do not sleep with single mothers, etc. Not politically correct for him to say. I know.

I think young enlisted who marry too young have the most problems.

Military is tax dollar funded organization. They should figure out a way to solve this problem. Don't we have enough budget for the military?
 
Old 09-21-2022, 09:13 AM
 
28,619 posts, read 18,658,429 times
Reputation: 30894
Quote:
Originally Posted by beachmouse View Post
Pay check is often a very small part of total military compensation. One of my cousins was an Army nurse married to another Army nurse. Their last posting before retirement was in Hawaii where they were getting something like $5500/month in housing allowance on top of their salaries. And then they retired, and had to sell that house, and moved to Florida (cash purchase from the equity in the Hawaii house) because they couldn’t afford to live in Hawaii as civilians.

Both of them also enlisted after high school trying to figure out adulthood and the Army fully paid for nursing school, which can be a good paycheck back in the civilian world after retirement, even part time. The military experience is often what you make of it.
Here is a tip for some young folk (although this may have changed since I retired):

Getting into veterinary school is usually very tough. Competition is great and the number of school slots around the country is tight.

But the US Army has veterinarians (because they still have horses). A person graduating from college (pre-med) can more easily get an Army commission and be put into one of the Army's reserved veterinary slots...and the Army will pay for it.

The commitment is to do a few years as a veterinary officer in the Army. But the benefit is that the other services also use Army veterinarians as pet vets and also for duties that require a "doctor"...but not necessarily an MD (like inspecting food facilities). So, an Army vet may spend his entire service commitment on an Air Force Base, inspecting the commissary and dining facilities and taking care of pets.
 
Old 09-21-2022, 09:14 AM
 
28,619 posts, read 18,658,429 times
Reputation: 30894
Quote:
Originally Posted by lilyflower3191981 View Post
Even when my brother was an e1 in the Marines, he had spending money every month. His co told all of them not to get married, do not sleep with single mothers, etc. Not politically correct for him to say. I know.

I think young enlisted who marry too young have the most problems.

Military is tax dollar funded organization. They should figure out a way to solve this problem. Don't we have enough budget for the military?
Well, the right answer is: Don't marry young. There are lots of reasons young troops should not rush to marriage, and the money is only one of them.
 
Old 09-21-2022, 09:16 AM
 
Location: NE Mississippi
25,420 posts, read 17,101,865 times
Reputation: 37103
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rocko20 View Post
https://www.foxnews.com/us/army-sugg...ling-inflation

Wow, and we wonder why the military is having recruiting problems? This is just sad, we send more to Ukraine than we'll give to our own troops.
I served from 62 to 71.
It's always been like that.
Junior military people do not make enough to raise a family. I don't know why people feel it should be any other way.
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