CQ Roll Call | Lawmakers renew push to boost troops’ housing payments
By: John M. Donnelly
A bipartisan group of House and Senate lawmakers on Thursday will renew a long-running legislative push to raise the housing allowances paid to most active-duty U.S. troops.
U.S. servicemembers who live off base are currently compensated for 95 percent of the median cost of rental housing and utilities in their geographical area, with adjustments for rank and number of dependents.
Military families received 100 percent of the off-base housing costs from 2005 until 2016, when the fiscal 2015 National Defense Authorization Act (PL 113-291), in a cost-saving measure, authorized the lower payments.
Every year since fiscal 2019, the payments have been at 95 percent, except for some temporary upward adjustments in certain regions.
The higher housing costs have come as lower-ranking servicemembers, in particular, have been hard hit by inflation, spousal unemployment and food insecurity in recent years.
For some servicemembers who live in parts of the country where housing is especially expensive, the issue is the No. 1 concern about military life, some surveys of troops have shown.
The 5 percent lower payments can add up for military families. In a 2023 survey conducted in 2023 by the research and support group Blue Star Families, 81 percent of those servicemembers whose housing costs were more than the allowance covered paid more than $200 a month for the difference.
On Thursday, Reps. Marilyn Strickland, D-Wash., and Don Bacon, R-Neb., plan to file legislation that would raise the housing allowance to its full amount.
In the Senate, Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., plans to do the same soon, with Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, co-sponsoring.
‘Strain’ on military families
Strickland, a member of the Armed Services Committee and its Military Personnel Subcommittee, said by email that access to affordable housing is one of the top issues she hears from servicemembers at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in her district.
“Servicemembers are priced out of options to live near their bases, putting strain on our military families,” Strickland said. “When the Department reduces the housing allowance, it exacerbates economic, food access, and readiness issues.”
Bacon, who co-chaired the House Armed Services Quality of Life Panel last year alongside Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., said servicemembers and their families should not have to struggle to find and afford housing.
“When they volunteer to put their lives on the line for their country, we should be able to guarantee that they will have access to clean and comfortable housing within the allowance they are given,” Bacon said in an email.
Warnock echoed these views.
“Georgia is a military state, and with all that we ask from our servicemembers and their families, ensuring they have quality, affordable housing is the least we can do,” Warnock said in a written statement.
$1 billion annual price tag
Last year, the House Armed Services Committee’s fiscal 2025 NDAA proposed bringing the allowance back to 100 percent for the first time since it was lowered — after several years of effort by Strickland and others to do so.
But the Senate Armed Services Committee said no, and the final fiscal 2025 NDAA (PL 118-159) did not include the change.
House Armed Services Chairman Mike D. Rogers, R-Ala., said in a December interview that negotiators writing the compromise fiscal 2025 NDAA that became law were unable to hit the 100 percent mark because they were constrained by the roughly $1 billion annual price tag of paying the higher housing allowances across the entire force.
Rogers said then that he had “every intention” of once again proposing to authorize the 100 percent payments when the fiscal 2026 NDAA is written in a couple of months.
Rep. Pat Fallon, R-Texas, the chairman of the Armed Services Subcommittee on Military Personnel, said in a January interview that he agrees with Rogers.
“Would you rather have your military at 95 percent or 100 percent?” Fallon said. “Are you telling them they’re only worth 95 percent?”
Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., the new chairman in the Armed Services Subcommittee on Personnel, has yet to declare a position on the issue.
“We are waiting to see the text but appropriate compensation for our armed service members is on Coach’s list of priorities,” Mallory Jaspers, a spokeswoman for Tuberville, a former Auburn University football coach, said in an email.