Toward Meaningful Military Compensation Reform: Research in Support of DoD's Review
Abstract
Pressure to reduce the federal deficit, planned reductions in strength, concerns about cost, and perceptions expressed by military leaders, past commissions, and studies about the lack of fairness of the military compensation system have placed increased attention on military compensation as an area for reform. In September 2011, the Office of the Secretary of Defense convened a working group of senior representatives throughout the Department of Defense (DoD) to conduct a comprehensive review of military compensation, focusing particularly on retirement compensation. RAND worked closely with this group over an 18-month period to analyze numerous retirement proposals and evaluate the feasibility of modernizing the retirement system. To do so, we used the dynamic retention model a tool for assessing the effect of alternative compensation proposals on active and reserve component retention and the results of our analysis suggest that it is possible to modernize the military compensation system in a way that will increase equity and efficiency, realize savings to DoD, sustain the size and experience mix of the force, and provide tools for flexibility to force managers, while maintaining the strengths of the current system.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2014
- Accession Number
- ADA611730
Entities
People
- Beth J. Asch
- James R. Hosek
- Michael G. Mattock
Organizations
- RAND Corporation