Tax-exempt pay. Extended leaves of absence for parenthood. Fewer permanent change of station moves.
Those are some of the “outside the box” ideas the leaders of the House Armed Services Committee’s military quality-of-life panel said they are mulling as they barrel toward an early 2024 goal of providing recommendations to improve service members’ pay, child care, housing and other issues key to people’s decision to join or stay in the military.
“You’re competing with the civilian economy that has also figured out that the youngest generation wants very much to feel a purpose and sense of community, and they’ve met them where they are,” Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., the ranking member of the quality-of-life panel, said at a Wednesday night event hosted by With Honor, a political action committee that supports veterans running for office.
Read Next: Veteran Suicides Ticked Upward in 2021 Following 2 Years of Decline, Latest VA Statistics Show
“Those kids are going into those job opportunities without the obligation of PCSing every couple of years, without the obligation of living in dorms that are substandard, with pay that is significantly more in most cases than what they’re going to be earning,” she added.
Houlahan, an Air Force veteran, was speaking alongside the panel’s chairman, Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., a retired Air Force brigadier general.
The quality-of-life panel was formed this congressional session to provide…
