The 2024 military pay raise
What they say
In a campaign ad she says she pushed through the largest pay increase for soldiers in decades; her campaign elsewhere puts it at 5.2 per cent.
“That’s why I pushed through the largest pay increase for our soldiers in decades.”
What the record shows ·
The defense authorization for Fiscal Year 2024, Public Law 118-31, sets no rate of basic pay: its basic-pay subtitle has three sections, on parental leave for reservists, reserve training pay, and pay during an absence. When a year's law sets no figure, the raise follows the standing formula in 37 U.S.C. 1009, tied to the Employment Cost Index. On the Act itself she voted Nay on the House's version on July 14, 2023 (roll call 328) and Yea on the final conference report on December 14, 2023 (roll call 723). The next year's act, for Fiscal Year 2025, Public Law 118-159, did set basic pay by statute: its section 601 put new monthly basic pay tables into effect on April 1, 2025, and its funding table carries $1.6 billion for a junior enlisted pay increase. She voted Aye on the House's version on June 14, 2024 (roll call 279) and Yea on the final bill on December 11, 2024 (roll call 500).
Limit: The Fiscal Year 2024 law has no pay provision for her, or anyone, to have pushed through: that year's raise, the 5.2 per cent her campaign cites, came from a formula already in statute. The Fiscal Year 2025 law did set pay rates by statute and she voted for it at both stages, so the ad's words could be read to cover that raise, though her campaign's own gloss does not mention it. Her campaign's fact-check page quotes her July 2023 explanation of the Nay, a vote against Republican amendments added to the House bill: “We shouldn’t be pitting pay raises that they [military members] deserve against the reproductive freedoms that they also deserve.” A vote shows support for a bill; whether any member “pushed through” a raise is not something a vote can settle.