Reserve Retirement Equality: Treating Reserves Fairly While Saving Taxpayer Dollars
Abstract
Perhaps at no time in its history has the United States asked so much from its reserve military forces. No longer ?weekend warriors,? Reserves deploy frequently to ensure that the American military upholds its global commitments. While Reserves? sacrifices are every bit as significant as their regular counterparts, their military retirement annuity is not: many Regulars draw retired pay as early as age 38; Reserves, on the other hand, must generally wait until they reach age 60. This paper calls on Congress to harmonize the regular and reserve military retirement systems. Specifically, this paper advocates for reducing the retirement age to 50 for the Reserves and increasing it to 50 for new active duty entrants. Reforming the two systems to more closely conform to their private-sector counterparts will keep budget outlays in check while meeting the goal of treating all of our fighting men and women equally.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 09, 2010
- Accession Number
- ADA526193
Entities
People
- Howie Reitz
Organizations
- United States Army War College