Money for 19.5% Pay Hike for Junior Enlisted Troops Included in House's Defense Spending Bill

Funding to support a 19.5% pay raise for junior enlisted troops is included in the House's initial version of the annual Pentagon spending bill that was released Tuesday.

If enacted into law as is, the House Appropriations Committee's version of the fiscal 2025 Pentagon spending bill would give the department the money to cover the massive boost in basic pay for the military's lowest-ranking troops that House lawmakers are on track to authorize in a separate defense policy bill.

But several other politically contentious provisions of the GOP-drafted bill are already eliciting fierce pushback from congressional Democrats, and it's unclear where the Senate will land on pay raises for junior troops, injecting uncertainty into what the final outcome of the spending bill will be.

After months of study of military quality-of-life issues by a bipartisan panel of lawmakers, the House Armed Services Committee included in its version of the policy bill, called the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, an extra 15% raise for paygrades E-1 through E-4 on top of the 4.5% raise that service members of all ranks are set to get next year.