Cost of Living

Someone else is after the locals to contribute to support the troops.

As I've said here before, I'm all for providing "service members" with the small but essential everyday items which armed services in their wisdom don't provide along with food, cheap clothing and shelter. However, the latest appeal sent me off to an inflation calculator to see how badly off they are vs. how I was getting on in the Navy of near 40 years ago.

I entered at a slightly advanced rank—the sole reward of a college education—and for my first two years received $155 a month, and had to buy most of my uniform items out of that after the initial issue wore out. If we were calculating from a 40-hour week, that would be 89 cents an hour, at a time when the minimum civilian wage was $1.45. The Navy week, of course, was longer than a civilian's, and included the risk of being shot, burned to death, frozen, drowned, or imprisoned, depending on where you were. You got paid extra for the privilege of being shot at...I think it was $50 a month. In theory you got the benefit of BX (PX in the Army) discounts, but the merchandise was skewed toward dependents and didn't much help the single swabby sleeping in a rack aboard ship or on station.

At the same rank today, with the same time in service, I would receive $1569 a month. That works out to $9.05 an hour on the same 40-hour theoretical basis, while the civilian minimum wage is $6.55, with the same deductions, the same risks, and $225 a month combat pay.

Too damn bad I can't pass the physical any more. In my present situation, that's competitive wages.