Military members value some types of compensation more than the cost to provide it and conversely undervalue others, finds the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in a study the center says could form the basis for intelligent decisions on reforming military compensation.
The July study (.pdf), authored by CSBA resident budget wonk Todd Harrison, takes as its data set a CSBA-sponsored online survey that generated 2,655 responses, half of those from active-duty service members. The study sample, Harrison acknowledges, is not a representatives sample of the active-duty population since respondents are self-selected and some ranks are over- or under-represented.
Nonetheless, the survey was an attempt to collect data on how service members themselves value different types of compensation, such as basic pay, a potential performance-based bonus, health insurance benefits and others.
The subject of military compensation is a touchy one, he recognizes, and the subject of the compensation system’s effect on recruiting and retention fell outside the scope of the survey.
The results show that service members of all ranks place a high value on basic pay, especially those at the lower end of the pay scale. However, the value service members appear to place on a performance-based bonus would only be a fraction of the cost it would take to implement those bonuses.