Is not paying rent, food, utilities, etc., a benefit received while on active duty (in addition to your pay)?

When your food and housing is substandard (ie, on a ship), it's hardly a benefit. Instead, for [redacted] months, I can't live where I want to and can't eat what I want to... or even have the benefits of my meals being warm. Gee... what a bonus!

Everyone thinks we eat for free... $300/mth is automatically taken out of our pay for chow halls that aren't even open. In addition to paying for a "free service" we don't get, we end up dropping another $300/mth to eat.

Out-F'ing-Standing for a private who makes about $13,000/year

The last deployment I went on was a 1 year commitment. I made a good wage with tax free, and benefits like BAH...until I did the math. For that deployment I made $7.04 an hour with a side bonus of living in a combat zone and having the real possibility of being killed or dismembered from what I call an SED (standard explosive device). Tough to call them improvised when they are taught how to use a Sanayo base station to make them as a standard. What civilian would engage with a job that paid below minimum wage with the chance of serious injury or death? Then, when we do make our wage in our chosen career they suggest wrongly we are paid too well. My last deployment was as a First Class, not as a junior enlisted. My pay as junior enlisted would have been in the $5 range. How exactly is that overpaid? THAT is something a civilian with no knowledge can't have explained to them due to complete lack of comprehension.

Yes, if you look at this from the total rewards approach to income the Service Member (SM) makes far more than just the stated income on a pay chart. I make the following points to support this:

a. The SM gets no cost room and board in the barracks or Basic Allowance for Housing
b. The SM gets not cost meals at the DFAC or Basic Allowance for Substance
c. The SM gets full medical + dental coverage
d. The SM gets 30 days paid vacation.
e. The SM gets $4500 tuition assistance yearly as well as 4 years of paid college when he/she leaves service.
f. The SM has access to tax-free shopping establishments
g. The SM has potential to gain skills that a civilian employer may value.
h. A low ranking SM will likely only be in the bottom ranks for a short period of time, so his/her income will increase quickly.
i. The SM has potential to retire from service after 20 years and receive a pension for life.

I'm sure I'm missing a ton of stuff, but the point is that there is more to compensation than just your monthly pay check.

In the Military you don't get to pick which barracks you live in. Try living in a barracks outside of a helicopter fuel depot or in a barracks in Okinawa that had been condemned that every summer you had to clean the walls in the hallway once a week because they turned brown. The bas allowance never covered the cost of living in the area you were stationed. How about having to eat in a chow hall that had civilian cooks and the food was absolutely terrible. I had meat one time my buddy was sticking a fork in it and squealing like it was still alive. I can go on and on. They are not benefits if they weren't there no one could join because the pay sucks until you get time in and higher rank, but all the money you have to pay out to get there and the BS you have to put up with doesn't compute. In the civilian world you can change your housing and your job.

Saw the same argument. Personally I lived well. Learned how to budget and save and invest. Lived in the barracks then forced (and paid) to live off post. The bills I had were of my own creation. I wasn't going to starve or be homeless because the Corps and Air Force provided something some way or another. Even a guy making $15 an hour has to fork over for housing, utilities, food, clothing and in most cases, medical/dental. If an E-1 chooses to marry and have 3 kids, buy a big screen and a sweet ride, he'll need to deal with his decision, but in the end, the military is going to provide something. Some don't want a "burger flipper" getting that much, but I guess a grunt would look at someone in the chowhall "flipping" and wonder the same thing. I'm for everyone getting a raise, the COL is getting ridiculous. If everyone had a degree, you would still need someone to cook your burger, pick up the trash and tend the lawn. Either way people will stump for higher wages to live off of. If you aren't a victim of personal financial mismanagement, after 4 or 20 years you should have a little something saved, especially not having to pay certain expenses that the average joe would. So yeah, I'd say we have great bennies. Not many jobs out there that will let you retire at 39, get a check and a few other perks while you work elsewhere.

Although we receive pay in accordance with a fixed pay scale as well as bennies that are certainly quantifiable, it is so much harder to assign a value to the the sacrifice we give of ourselves vice putting a value to services that civilians provide to their employers and their community.

In some ways, I think the housing and sustenance provided by the government to military members is less about being a benefit and more about the government's investment in military personnel to keep them warm, full, healthy and fit to defend our nation. Same as free dental and healthcare.

Way to often I see military personnel complain about their low pay, but, they only claim their base pay as compensation. When talking pay one has to consider all including the fact that much is not taxed.

Somethings to think about all benefits included I was making 22.50 an hour however after 20 years you get out and try and find a job for 22.50 an hour at age 40 good luck and I have always had a second job this is based on a forty hour week take in consideration 5 deployments and two years in Korea where family is not aloud this is 7 years away divide this by 3 and this gives you an extra 14 years of pay based on 8 hour work days you do not get payed for let alone overtime how about just not compare your pay to our military because if you are you probably couldn't make it as one of us To all that defend for us Thank YOU and let's keep trying for our benefits and then use them