Should the military pay by skillset or trade?

2015-04-04T13:28:27-04:00

First of all, I'm not advocating for more or less pay. For discussions purposes, should the military consider paying service members by the job they do like the civilian community. In the civilian world, human resources personnel, computer experts, plumbers, missile experts, and burger flippers normally have different wage scales or salaries. Of course, I realize the military and civilian sector are different. my question is whether this an area we should be different and why? I'm not for or against this idea. Just curious what the RP family's take is?

Response by MSgt Michael Durkee made Apr 4 at 2015 1:46 PM

2015-04-04T13:46:33-04:00

Well, we are all war fighters first and foremost. We should be paid based upon that, anything else and we wouldn't have a balance of work force...everyone would be shooting for the highest paying jobs.

Response by SSgt Dan Montague made Apr 4 at 2015 2:54 PM

2015-04-04T14:54:23-04:00

I think if the military did do that, the intended pay scale would be a 160 from civilian. What a civilian programer would make in the military would be the lowest paid mos. The grunts would be the highest paid. I'm not saying that the ground pounders are all uneducated, but it would be like the higher educated people would get paid less. Only because you can't expect an office worker to get paid higher than a ground pounder.

Response by Cpl Jeff N. made Apr 4 at 2015 3:26 PM

2015-04-04T15:26:49-04:00

If we did, it would need to be relative to the risk in each role. Combat arms, infantry, special forces etc would be paid the most, the people in the rear with the gear the least. I would not want a techy of the same rank making more than someone that puts their life at risk. I know that seems counterintuitive but not if you are getting shot at.