As lawmakers from the House and Senate Armed Services Committees are working on the final version of the 2025 defense policy bill, House lawmakers’ recent letter to their Senate colleagues is one of the final attempts to bring quality-of-life issues back to the forefront of the debate.

A House panel led by Reps. Don Bacon, R-Neb., and Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., spearheaded the effort to comprehensively assess quality of life concerns impacting service members and their families. The panel spent months devising a list of recommendations that address service member pay, housing and childcare — the panel’s findings were subsequently incorporated into the House’s version of the 2025 defense policy bill.

The House’s version of the bill includes a 19.5% pay raise for junior enlisted service members, bringing their salary to over $30,000 annually. The bill supports a 4.5% raise for the rest of the service members.

The Senate version of the defense bill also proposes a 4.5% pay raise for all service members, but supports only an extra 1% boost for junior enlisted service members. It also proposes a 2% raise for the Defense Department’s civilian employees.

House lawmakers, in their letter from last month, pushed back on their Senate colleagues’ decision to support a uniform 4.5% pay raise and overall a scaled-back version of the panel’s recommendations, arguing that it fails to adequately address quality of life concerns, which will inevitably impact recruiting, retention and readiness long-term.

“Military pay and benefits have failed to keep pace with the rapid growth in inflation.  Furthermore, as local jurisdictions increase the minimum wage in response to prevailing economic conditions, competition for military recruits will continue to intensify,” House lawmakers wrote.

“Illustrating this point, the state of California — home to the largest concentration of military personnel in the Department of Defense — recently raised the minimum wage for fast food workers to $20 per hour, well above direct compensation for most junior enlisted service members.”

In June, the White House said it “strongly opposed” any significant pay raise for junior enlisted service members before the Defense Department completes the Fourteenth Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation, which is due in January 2025.

In a statement, the Biden Administration said service members already received the largest pay increase since 2003 at the beginning of 2024, which was coupled with a 5.4% increase in basic allowance for housing and a 1.7% increase in basic allowance for food.

“If the President’s fiscal 2025 request is enacted, service members will have received a 15% basic pay increase in just three years. The House proposed changes would lead to pay compression in some parts of the enlisted military basic pay table,” the White House said in a statement.

Overall, the House’s proposed changes would cost over $3.3 billion in 2025 and more than $21.9 billion in the next four years.

The Administration’s statement drew sharp criticism at the time from Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Al., who leads the House Armed Services Committee.

“President Biden believes providing the men and women who serve in our Armed Forces with adequate compensation is too costly. This is offensive and wrong. Too many military families are relying on food banks, SNAP, and WIC in order to put food on the table. Republicans and Democrats on our committee agreed this is unacceptable,” said Rogers.

“The Committee’s decision to give junior enlisted service members a targeted 15% pay raise is based on research conducted by our bipartisan Quality of Life Panel in collaboration with the Department of Defense. Instead of supporting this commonsense proposal, President Biden is once again turning his back on our servicemembers.”

Besides military pay raise, House lawmakers’ version of the 2025 defense bill boosts the housing allowance to cover 100% of the average local area rental rate, increases access to childcare at military bases, expands access to healthcare and supports a number of spouse employment programs.

In their letter, House lawmakers said it is “disheartening to see that these recommendations were not included in the Senate-introduced version of the [National Defense Authorization Act.]”

“Perhaps most concerning, the panel repeatedly heard first-hand how military families – traditionally a bedrock source of military recruiting – are less likely to recommend military service for their own children, predominantly due to quality of life concerns. This is an urgent indicator that we must promptly correct with meaningful results, not just supportive rhetoric,” lawmakers wrote.

Meanwhile, the National Military Family Association, a long-standing advocacy group that supports military families, sent a letter to Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., and Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., urging Senate lawmakers to support a 19.5% pay hike, restore coverage to 100% of housing costs and fully fund child care fee assistance programs.

“Service is a choice, yet the rising costs of this commitment are impacting military families and, ultimately, national readiness. Our service members are struggling under the high and rising cost of living,” said Besa Pinchotti, the NMFA’s chief executive.

Both House and Senate lawmakers have contended with budget caps imposed by the Fiscal Responsibility Act enacted last year. The Senate Armed Services Committee, however, greenlit a $911.8 billion topline for the 2025 defense bill, blowing past the $895 billion defense spending limit.

The House version of the NDAA adhered to the spending caps, authorizing approximately $883.7 billion for the DoD.

The House and Senate lawmakers returned to Washington, D.C., over two weeks ago — both chambers are in session until Dec. 19th.

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