It is all about labor supply and demand. The military should have been freezing pay two years ago at the start of the recession. Now they risk freezing pay coming out of the recession when there will be more employer competition for labor. I would argue that deployed troops are actually underpaid, for all branches of service. On the other hand, nondeployed troops are absolutely overpaid. If you don’t know what I mean, you haven’t served.
To encourage people to put up with the stress of frequent deployment and family and relationship damage the military has found they need to pay more to meet retention goals. The generous federal retirement system and health benefits figure greatly into the decision for experienced military personnel to choose to continue to serve. Absent the generous retirement, the senior ranks would be decimated.
Having said that, the entire military compensation system and retirement system could be radically overhauled. Base pay could be lower with flexible special pay and bonus contracts that allow tailoring of the force as desired.
The military will find out (again) that they can’t meet manning and retention goals if they pay the “comparable” civilian rate, unless they open up all our classified jobs to non U.S. citizens. Quality of life matters a lot at some point.
The War of Terror seems to be crushing the backbone of the Army (and maybe Marines?). The other services, not so much. If you want combat troops happy to wage war for less you just can’t do it in the numbers our nation would like.
