Sergeant Pay Grade
July 7, 2009 12:59 PM Subscribe
What would a Staff Sergeant (E-6) for the Minnesota Army National Guard doing convoy security in Iraq make per month? He's married with two kids doing combat duty.
That's what my cousin's husband is doing right now. Some of the family were trying to guess how much she gets kicked back to her.
woops, my calculator link goes to a registration form. In any case, hal_c_on hit it right.
posted by jquinby at 1:06 PM on July 7, 2009
posted by jquinby at 1:06 PM on July 7, 2009
From here: Military pay tables, and if you really want to dig deep, here.
Base pay: Between approx. $2200 and $3400 depending on time in rank.
Family separation allowance: $250
Hazardous duty: $150
Iminent danger: $225
So, with these allowances (and some others, ie. there's an annual clothing replacement deal), somewhere between $2825/month and $4025 per month. Pre-tax. Some allowances aren't taxed, to muddy it up a bit. There's a word document on that site that's pretty simple to follow.
posted by disclaimer at 1:52 PM on July 7, 2009
Base pay: Between approx. $2200 and $3400 depending on time in rank.
Family separation allowance: $250
Hazardous duty: $150
Iminent danger: $225
So, with these allowances (and some others, ie. there's an annual clothing replacement deal), somewhere between $2825/month and $4025 per month. Pre-tax. Some allowances aren't taxed, to muddy it up a bit. There's a word document on that site that's pretty simple to follow.
posted by disclaimer at 1:52 PM on July 7, 2009
Disclaimer, it's not time in rank, it's time in service that determines base pay. Also, while he's deployed to a combat zone, none of his income is taxable. It's listed in a different box on form W-2 and won't be treated as regular income. It's a pretty significant bump, depending on how many dependents he's claiming normally (we don't put any of ours on form W-4 and we just sort it out at the end of the year, partly because we claim one kid in alternating years, partly because we're better at paying bills off in chunks).
It doesn't look like our LESes from last summer are still in DFAS. My husband was deployed to a zone where hazardous duty pay applied at the time and was in the 16-18 year bracket for active duty pay, so it would be pretty similar. While he's active, he should also be making a BAH (housing allowance).
posted by Cricket at 2:04 PM on July 7, 2009
It doesn't look like our LESes from last summer are still in DFAS. My husband was deployed to a zone where hazardous duty pay applied at the time and was in the 16-18 year bracket for active duty pay, so it would be pretty similar. While he's active, he should also be making a BAH (housing allowance).
posted by Cricket at 2:04 PM on July 7, 2009
Base pay is online with the charts, determined by rank and time in service.
Because he's in Iraq, he's got Combat Zone Tax Exclusion. He's not exempt from things like social security taxes however. If he re-enlists with a bonus over there, the bonus is tax-free as well. Running convoy security in particular is not something that should earn him any additional pay on top of the regular deployment stuff.
I'm kind of taking this off the top of my head, but...
SAVE pay/Hardship duty pay - $100 a month
Imminent danger pay/hostile fire pay - $225 a month
Family separation pay - $250 a month
Per diem is about $100 a month in the end.
Also, he should get BAH (basic allowance for housing), which is a monthly payment based on his rank and the zip code of his home of record. There's also BAS (basic allowance for subsistence) but I don't know how the National Guard deals with that.
But considering it's the Army, chances are his pay is jacked up half the time anyway.
posted by lullaby at 2:18 PM on July 7, 2009
Because he's in Iraq, he's got Combat Zone Tax Exclusion. He's not exempt from things like social security taxes however. If he re-enlists with a bonus over there, the bonus is tax-free as well. Running convoy security in particular is not something that should earn him any additional pay on top of the regular deployment stuff.
I'm kind of taking this off the top of my head, but...
SAVE pay/Hardship duty pay - $100 a month
Imminent danger pay/hostile fire pay - $225 a month
Family separation pay - $250 a month
Per diem is about $100 a month in the end.
Also, he should get BAH (basic allowance for housing), which is a monthly payment based on his rank and the zip code of his home of record. There's also BAS (basic allowance for subsistence) but I don't know how the National Guard deals with that.
But considering it's the Army, chances are his pay is jacked up half the time anyway.
posted by lullaby at 2:18 PM on July 7, 2009
Cricket: I stand corrected, I meant service, I said rank (-headslap - I'm a vet, I should know these things). And I said "tax" and didn't explain it further - because there are still items withheld, gross pay doesn't equal net pay, even with the exclusions - I should have said something like "but there are still deductions".
...
posted by disclaimer at 5:01 PM on July 7, 2009
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posted by disclaimer at 5:01 PM on July 7, 2009
I don't see how any of this data will go toward answering the question of how much the wife will get though. Before deployment he'd have been made to get direct deposit set up (at least that's the way it was when I was in). But there's nothing requiring him to give her a penny as far as I know.
If she's working, he may have the cash all going into an account for when he gets back.
Obviously, I am guessing he is taking care of his wife and kids, but just want to point out that there's no way to tell what she has t live on based on what he is being paid.
posted by cjorgensen at 6:03 PM on July 7, 2009 [1 favorite]
If she's working, he may have the cash all going into an account for when he gets back.
Obviously, I am guessing he is taking care of his wife and kids, but just want to point out that there's no way to tell what she has t live on based on what he is being paid.
posted by cjorgensen at 6:03 PM on July 7, 2009 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by jquinby at 1:04 PM on July 7, 2009