Comparisons of Enlisted and Civilian Pay

The Personnel Readiness Division of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (J1) asked CNA to examine the earnings of enlisted personnel and to compare them with the earnings of similar people in the civilian labor market. We used multiple regression to estimate civilian earnings of non-college-graduates and used these models to predict the earnings potential of enlisted military personnel. We found that earnings in the civilian and military sectors are similar and that both fell, when adjusted for inflation, between 1992 and 1996 (the year for which the most recent civilian data were available).