Military Personnel

In the President’s 2025 budget request, total military compensation is $600 billion, including veterans' benefits. That amount represents an increase of 162 percent since 1980 (and 151 percent since 1999) after removing inflation’s effects.

CBO periodically issues a compendium of policy options and their estimated effects on the federal budget. This report presents 76 options for altering spending or revenues to reduce federal budget deficits over the next decade.

CBO analyzes the Department of Defense’s plans for 2025 to 2029 as presented in the 2025 Future Years Defense Program. Under those plans, CBO projects, defense costs would increase by 11 percent between 2029 and 2039.

CBO compares the housing standards used to determine the military’s basic allowance for housing (BAH) with the housing rented by comparable civilians. CBO also compares BAH rates with the rental costs paid by those civilians.

CBO compared the earnings, personal income, and household income of working-age male veterans who received disability payments from the Department of Veterans Affairs with those of veterans who did not receive such payments.

This tool allows the user to see the effects on the Department of Defense’s total operation and support costs and on the size of the military of adding or subtracting tanks, ships, aircraft, and other units.

CBO analyzes funding for special and incentive pay for active-duty service members in the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps and explores how those types of pay have been used to address personnel shortfalls.

CBO examined three broad options for reconfiguring the military if funding for the Department of Defense was reduced by $1 trillion (in 2022 dollars), or 14 percent, over the next 10 years.

CBO examines the implications of adjusting military basic pay with an alternative wage index and adjusting all components of regular cash pay with the employment cost index.

This update of CBO’s 2016 primer on the structure of the U.S. military describes the size, functions, and operation and support costs of every major element of the armed forces.

CBO examines two options for establishing a Space National Guard to support active component Space Force personnel, estimating the additional costs beyond those incurred for existing Air and Army National Guard units that have space-related missions.

This report examines military compensation and its effects on recruitment, retention, and motivation. CBO also provides a comparison with civilian compensation packages and examines five possible approaches for altering the way that DoD compensates military personnel.

In 2016, members of the reserve component received an average of $12,500 in benefits (measured in 2018 dollars) under the Post-9/11 GI Bill. This report describes their use of those benefits and compares how the reserve and regular components use their benefits.

From 2010 through 2016, the Veterans Benefits Administration spent $65 billion on educational benefits for 1.6 million veterans, spouses and children, mostly for veterans’ tuition, fees, and housing. In 2016, VBA spent an average of $17,400 per beneficiary.