"Political Debates Surrounding Military Recruitment and Readiness"

Military service officials plan to use bonuses and other financial incentives instead of raising enlisted pay to meet this year's recruiting goals. Defense officials want to study the idea of boosting pay as part of future military compensation reform. Lawmakers have established a new quality-of-life panel to investigate pay issues. The next military-wide pay raise is not scheduled to go into effect until January 2024. All of the armed services except for the Space Force have said publicly that they expect to miss their recruiting goals for fiscal 2023.