If the DOD does what they are saying, there will be targeted raises. The WOA is backing this plan but I don't think it makes no more sense than Congressman Murthas 7.3% plan. The DOD plan is to give raises to everyone but in different increments. Starting at 6% for E-1 then gradually climbing to 8% for E-6, 8.5% for E-7, 9% for E-8, and 9.6% for E-9!
The WOA says that the raises that the Warrant Officers are going to get will help the pay compression issue, but look at the targeted raises: W-1 & W-2 is 8.5%, W-3 is 8%, W-4 is 7.5%, and W-5 is 7%! They are reversed from the enlisted raises. I can only guess that W3s and above don't fit into the equation as being important to the recruitment of NCOs (by pay comparison) so their targeted raises are lower. So an E-7 who is making more than a W-1 gets the same targeted raise percentage as the W-1. Now, his pay has an even larger spread than before. He is reaching toward the W-2s pay. That is called COMPRESSION. So how does the WOA justify this type of raise to help ease the pay compression problem? It does that by only by saying that since the WOs are being targeted for pay raises that the DOD understands the needs of the WO. I say BULL! We are just catching up a bit. Nothing is being fixed.
What's more, we are getting into an internal pay compression within the WO ranks. By raising the pay of the 2 lowest WO grades 2.5% greater than the others, the total salary difference compresses.
RLOs pay is still way to far ahead of us in relation to what we do. We should not be looking behind us to determine where our pay should be, we should look ahead. That is where we do the most work and where the army is saying we should be, therefore, we should be paid with them. But we seem to have our pay being pushed by the pay raises of the NCOs rather than dragged up by the RLOs pay. Over the last 3 years, NCO (E-7) pay has increased 19.2% while WOs (W-2) have gone up 16.3%. Percentage wise, we had a better percentage of raises than the RLOs. I calculate their raises at 13.5% over the last 3 years.
It doesn't mean we are gaining though. Look at the actual cash value of the raises: CPTs gain $533 since 1999, W-2s = $436, and E-7s = $462 (under the targeted 2002 raise). If the 7.3% plan goes into effect it will look like this: CPTs = $583, W-2s = $436, and E-7s = $432. What's more, in 2001, a captain makes @ 31% more than a W2 and a W2 makes @14% more than an E-7. Under the targeted raises, a CPT will make 29.7% more than the W2 (.06% gain for us) while the E-7 remains even with the Warrant Officers.
It means more money in our pockets (a good thing), but despite what the WOA thinks about the targeted pay raises: THE COMPRESSION IS NOT GETTING BETTER!!!