May 6, 2002

World War II Army Pay and Benefits.

As you may know from the many various and sundry articles on the great depression both prices and salaries collapsed during the years 1929 to 1939. My eldest brother Bill was a mathematician at New York Life (insurance company) in the mid 1930's. His pay was $15 a week. My sister Cora was a file clerk at a casualty insurance company in NY and she got $12 a week. I was a runner on wall street at the brokerage firm of Foster, Brown & Co., in 1939-1940 and I got $15 a week.

I was inducted into the United States Army in December, 1942. At the time I was inducted a private in the U.S. Army got $21 a month BEFORE DEDUCTIONS. I lucked out because in January , 1943 a new pay scale went into effect and I got $50 a month as a private in the U.S. Army.

But that was a gross pay and the army deducted the kitchen sink from your pay check:

• We could voluntarily remit part of our pay to our dependents. Since my mother was unemployed and my father was dead I volunteered to have $25 a month deducted from my pay check to go to my mother every month. The Federal Government matched that with another $25 so that my mother got $50 a month from me. That left me no more than $25 a month as pay while in the United States.
• We could decide to buy life insurance up to $10,000 face value. The monthly premium for the life insurance was $6.40 a month which was automatically deducted from your salary. Since my mother was all alone and since I was in infantry training camp I decided to buy the life insurance. That meant that my Army salary was deducted $6.40 a month for the life insurance.
• The two deductions per month now came to $31.40 a month out of a total of $50 a month leaving me $18.60 spending money per month.
• But MORE DEDUCTIONS WERE TO COME. I had to have my Army uniforms and army fatigue gear laundered and pressed. I would send one of my uniforms to be cleaned at least once a month and I would send one of my two fatigue uniforms to be cleaned at lest once a month. That cost about $5 a month.
• My net pay after all the deductions and the costs of being able to pass inspection was, therefore, the princely sum of about $13 a month! I was always broke, always borrowing $5 or $10 dollars and unable to do a blessed thing. I, therefore spent my free time in the Rec Hall, the USO or the Fort library.
• Just before we went overseas the Army invented the infantry badge. I passed muster on the expert infantry badge (the combat infantry badge without the wreath- the wreath was saved until you got into harms way [implication absolutely intended] ) and I got another $5.00 a month! I do not know of any additional pay for the CIB but there was the $10 combat pay! Medals and badges are cheap: give me money.
• I was now loaded since I had all of $18 a month spending money or 60 cents a day!

We then went overseas for which we were paid more per month. I had been promoted to PFC (along with everybody else going overseas) and that meant a base pay of $54 a month instead of $50 a month. High rank deserves high pay!

Overseas pay was an additional $10 a month!

But since I went into combat I got combat pay. It was enormous at 30 cents a day, yes 30 cents a day! $10 a month! That is a reflection of how much the Army and the United States valued your life: it was worth 30cents a day!

Therefore as a combat soldier I got the $18 I netted from my stateside pay plus $10 for being on foreign soil plus $10 for risking our lives. Net pay was, therefore, all of $38 a month! I was loaded absolutely loaded! I was now loaded except that in combat there was nothing to do with your money IF you even got paid BUT WE WERE NEVER PAID.

In fact between my last payday in the States to my first payday in Europe was about one solid year! HOWEVER being that I was wounded and was no longer in combat I did get to be paid the $10 a month combat pay. I guess that once you earned it you earned it forever (until they rescinded it in 1948!)

I finally got paid in France about a year after we landed there and I got into crap games with fellow GI's and raked in the money. My back pay of about $250 became my stake for gambling and I finally had some money because I was a great crap shooter (once rolled 17 '7's" in a row) !

When I was discharged I got a bonus of $250 and some back pay.

From 1945 until 1949 the Federal government (the American people) paid all my college matriculation costs, all my college book costs and a monthly allowance of $106 since I was a wounded veteran. I also received a 40% disability pension as a result of my deafness and knee wound but after a year I told the Feds to keep it!

If it had not been for the "GI Bill of Rights" under which I got 3 degrees I would never have been able to attend much less graduate from a university. My degree from France was paid for by the French "counterpart funds".

My estimate is that the total costs of putting me through three of my degrees was about $10,000. Being an economist I calculated about 7 years ago that as a result of the government investing in me generously from 1945 until 1948 I have paid over my lifetime some $8,000,000 (eight million dollars) in additional taxes. These are the taxes which I would not have paid if I did not have the earning power of a higher education paid for by the American people.

The American people and the American government more than got their money back!

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