Our young Navy family was stationed in Norfolk, Va., in late 1998, where we bought a starter home on a cul-de-sac and settled in to get therapies for our developmentally delayed toddler son. House-poor, on a single income and with doctor’s bills not covered by the early versions of “Tricare’s Exceptional Family Member Program,” we lived comfortably, but paycheck to paycheck in those days.

I remember withdrawing one crisp $20 bill from the drive-thru Navy Federal Credit Union ATM each Monday, often while listening to the juicy Monica Lewinsky scandal on my minivan’s AM radio, and making it my goal for my cash to last until the weekend. I used my debit card sparingly for gas and groceries, but back then, a gallon of gas, a two-liter bottle of soda and a dozen eggs cost less than a dollar each.

Before our first Norfolk tour was over, 9/11 happened, and recruitment, pay and benefits increased to meet military readiness demands. In 2002, military pay was increased by 6.2%, the highest increase since Reagan raised military pay by 14.2% in 1982.

By contrast, today’s military families are paying at least three times as much for groceries and gas, and they’d be lucky if twenty bucks lasted a day or two. How did we get here?

After George W. Bush’s big military pay increase in 2002, annual military pay raises slowly but surely plummeted as the country grew weary over the War on Terror. In 2014 and 2015 under Obama, military pay increased only 1% in the midst of widespread Pentagon budget cuts and military drawdown.

And recently, four years of record inflation has taken a particularly hard toll on military families, whose pay rates have not been equal to their civilian counterparts. During this time, Biden authorized military pay increases of 3% for 2021, 2.7% for 2022, 4.6% for 2023 and 5.2% for 2024. For 2025, Biden signed a bill allowing a 4.5% increase for most military members, while the junior enlisted ranks will receive 14.5% more to lessen their financial struggles.

Not surprisingly, the recently released results of Blue Star Families’ 2024 Military Lifestyle Survey shows that military pay was a top concern for active duty military families for the fifth year in a row. Active duty military families have high spouse unemployment and underemployment rates, relocation costs and unreimbursed housing costs to contend with, but their household income has not kept pace with civilians.

“In inflation-adjusted terms, military households are worse off now than they were in 2011,” the report states, explaining that military families have received a 21% increase in income since 2011, while civilian households received more than double that figure in the same time period. Junior enlisted ranks have struggled the most, with 64% reporting that they are “just getting by” or finding it “difficult to get by.”

If history, studies and and the military families themselves prove that military families are financially stressed, then why did the Pentagon conclude in a January-released Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation (QRMC) that military base pay should not be increased because “the pay table is sound” and “adequate” compared to civilian income?

QRMC did not use inflation and the current cost of living to reach its conclusions, but rather, it simply compared civilian pay rates to military pay rates, without taking into account military relocation costs, out-of-pocket housing costs, inadequate childcare, spouse unemployment and other military-specific financial challenges. QRMC acknowledged that “concerns have been expressed regarding recruiting and food insecurity,” but it did not believe that increases in salary or housing allowances were the answer because money “may not be efficient options to address certain concerns of service members.” Instead, the Pentagon group suggested “non-cash” compensation to address financial woes.

Hmm. I’d like to see a military family try to buy a dozen eggs with that “non-cash” compensation.

Times may have changed — after all, Monica Lewinsky is 51 years old now — but cash is still king. Whether it comes in the form of better military paychecks or crisp $20 bills, the Pentagon and the President should give military families the pay they need and deserve.

Read more at themeatandpotatoesoflife.com and in Lisa’s book, “The Meat and Potatoes of Life: My True Lit Com.” Email: meatandpotatoesoflife@gmail.com