Junior enlisted military members will receive a 14.5% pay increase starting in April under a compromise defense spending bill that is expected to pass this month.
The pay increase will apply to enlisted sailors of the ranks E1 to E4, and is a scaled back version of a formerly proposed 19.5% pay increase.
Sailors ranked E5 and up, as well as officers, will receive a 4.5% pay increase, which is aligned with the standard annual increase. The 4.5% will take effect at the start of 2025, with an additional 10% bump for junior enlisted service members in April.
Currently, an E1 US Navy sailor with two or fewer years of service makes $24,204 annually in base pay. An E4 sailor with four more more years of service earns $36,792. It is difficult to determine an average timeline for these ranks, as some sailors leave boot camp with an E1 rank, while others may leave with an E3 rank, depending on performance and rate. Promotion timelines post boot camp, too, depend on a sailor’s job and performance.
However, the pay increase will amount to about $3,000 to $6,000 annually per sailor, depending on rank and years served.
A 2018 Department of Defense survey found that 45% of junior enlisted service members are food insecure. That same survey found that 30% of E5 and E6 service members also have faced food insecurity. Of all active duty military members, 25.8% were food insecure in 2018.
A 2024 study by the US Department of Agriculture found that the prevalence of food insecurity is 2.5 times higher for military personnel than it is for the civilian population.
Base pay is separate from bonuses or housing allowance. Next year’s Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) rates have not been released yet, although in San Diego, they have increased annually in recent years. All junior enlisted sailors must live in military barracks and do not receive BAH unless they are married. Most service members living in the military’s privately operated military housing pay full BAH to do so.
The bill also includes increases to wages for workers at the military’s Child Development Centers, which provide childcare for military families, in effort to make the service more available to families far from support networks.
It also outlines a plan for improving barracks housing and making the transfer of professional licenses from to state to state easier for military spouses. Military spouse unemployment and underemployment is another issue facing service members and their families, due not only to their spouses’ sporadic work schedules but also to frequent moves.
Megan Kitt is married to an active duty US military service member.
