Beth J. Asch

The National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2020 directed the Secretary of Defense to report on food insecurity among members of the armed forces and their dependents. RAND researchers examined the eight elements from the directive (including an assessment of the current extent of food insecurity among service members and their dependents) and developed answers, along with listing areas requiring additional analysis.

The joint U.S. Department of Defense (DoD)-Department of Veterans Affairs Integrated Disability Evaluation System is the process by which DoD determines fitness for duty and separation or retirement because of disability. In this report, the authors evaluate four hypothetical alternative DoD disability compensation approaches that would support a simpler disability evaluation process by reducing reliance on disability ratings.

In support of the Thirteenth Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation, the authors of this report provide input on setting the level of military pay and the annual adjustment to military pay. They conclude that the U.S. Department of Defense should raise the benchmark it uses to set military pay and change the way it calculates the annual increase in military basic pay.

This report documents analyses of either a warrant officer component or an aviation technical track for commissioned officers to supplement the traditional Air Force pilot career path. The analysis sought to determine whether either alternative would enhance force sustainment, thus helping to reduce pilot shortages.

The number of field grade and noncommissioned officers with more than 30 years of service has increased since 2007. Drawing on interviews with subject-matter experts and using RAND's Dynamic Retention Model, the authors consider the effects of capping retired pay for mid-grade military personnel so that only those in the highest grades and with the most years of service would receive the highest retired pay.

The authors develop and estimate a stochastic dynamic programming model to analyze the relationship between compensation, including retirement benefits, and retention over the career of Chicago public school teachers. The structural modeling approach used was first developed at RAND for studying the relationship between military compensation and the retention of military personnel and is called the dynamic retention model (DRM).

Exactly how much money do the average officers and enlisted personnel make every month? Retaining high-quality personnel is a priority for the U.S. armed forces. To do so, the military must compensate its servicemembers adequately. The Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation looks at cash pay to enable each armed service to meet its manpower requirements. The authors here examine all forms of cash pay, with attention to special and incentive pays. They found rates of compensation across the services remarkably similar, regardless of skill area. The services should seek greater differentiation if they want to vary the experience mix of their personnel.

The authors provide information on how the fit between the Basic Allowance for Housing and area housing prices has evolved for Army personnel and the implications of that fit for the adequacy of housing for Army personnel.

The U.S. Army is looking to modernize its special and incentive (S&I) pays to increase their efficiency in improving retention and incentivizing greater performance. Specifically for aviator S&I pays, the Army is considering proposals that would make S&I pays contingent on achieving specific career milestones. Such a policy would aim to not only sustain retention but also target compensation to individual qualifications and talent.

This report presents an analysis--requested by the Office of the Secretary of Defense as input for Congress--of the implications of flexible spending account options for active-duty service members and their families that would allow pre-tax payment of dependent care expenses, insurance premiums, and out-of-pocket medical expenses. The authors evaluate the benefits and costs of these options to service members and the U.S. Department of Defense.

This report documents research and analysis conducted as part of a project entitled Improving the Efficiency and Effectiveness of Special and Incentive Pays in the Army, sponsored by the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Manpower and Reserve Affairs. The purpose of the project was to help the Army determine how to best increase incentives for higher performance among enlisted members and to more efficiently achieve Army retention objectives.

This report assesses the effects of the Blended Retirement System (BRS) on military retention and cost. The report finds that the BRS can produce the same retention as the legacy system if continuation pay (CP) is set at optimized levels. CP levels affect the likelihood that currently serving members elect the BRS, thereby affecting the time pattern of cost and cost savings to the government.

The authors develop the analytic capability to calculate the efficient amount of special and incentive pay for Air Force career enlisted aviators (CEAs). They also estimate the trade-offs between retaining CEAs and increasing accessions for a given force size and the value that recruiting and training costs would need to reach for retaining more experienced CEAs to become more cost-effective than increasing accessions.