Obama calls for 2.9% pay raise in 2010

[unhappycamper]

President Barack Obama, stands with his economic team Thursday as he speaks about his fiscal 2010 federal budget. The budget calls for a 2.9 percent military pay increase.


Obama calls for 2.9% pay raise in 2010
Staff report
Posted : Thursday Feb 26, 2009 18:43:13 EST

President Obama is proposing a 2.9 percent military pay raise effective Jan. 1, 2010, a figure that would match — not exceed — average wage growth in the private sector.

The pay raise is contained in a broad-stroke summary of Obama’s first federal budget, titled “A New Era of Responsibility.” Full details of the budget are not expected to be released until some time in April.

In every year of this decade so far, the military pay raise has been at least one-half percentage point above the average private-sector wage growth, a sustained effort by Congress to close a purported gap between military and civilian pay that some say has existed since 1982. The gap reportedly stands at 2.9 percent today.

The Bush administration also proposed military pay raises that matched private-sector wage growth in at least two years of this decade, but lawmakers consistently have bumped up the increase slightly in the final defense budget.

Obama’s defense budget request for fiscal 2010 totals $533.7 billion, which would be a 4 percent increase over this year’s figure of $513.3 billion. That does not include funding for ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama has asked for $75.5 billion for the rest of this fiscal year and $130 billion in fiscal 2010 in wartime supplemental funding.


Rest of article at: http://armytimes.com/news/2009/02/military_pay_raise_obama_022609w/%2e



uhc comment: I guess it's so, Mr. O --> http://journals.democraticunderground.com/unhappycamper/254