Federal Drive

Steve Bell, Senior Director of Economic Policy, Bipartisan Policy Center

The military is shrinking, but the Pentagon's personnel costs keep growing. In fact, it pays about $125,000 per active-duty service member, including both salar...

Federal News Network Staff

July 22, 2014 10:00 am

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wfedstaff | April 17, 2015 7:23 pm

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The military is shrinking, but the Pentagon’s personnel costs keep growing. In fact, it pays about $125,000 per active-duty service member, including both salary and benefits. Two Washington think tanks are raising alarms. They say the Pentagon needs to do something now so it doesn’t have to cut other critical parts of its budget later on. Steve Bell is senior director of economic policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center. He joined Tom Temin and Emily Kopp on the Federal Drive to discuss why the personnel cost has become expensive.