A Summary of Major Military Retirement Reform Proposals, 1976-2006

This report summarizes substantive proposals to restructure the U.S. military retirement system, resulting from major U.S. Department of Defense–sponsored studies over the 1976–2006 period, including proposals from the 1976 Defense Manpower Commission, the 1978 President’s Commission on Military Compensation, the 1984 Fifth Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation, the 1988 Sixth Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation, and the 2006 Defense Advisory Commission on Military Compensation. In addition, two comparative charts appended to this report summarize the key features of the various reform proposals since 1948, including the five major studies examined in this report. Although most of the major studies on military retirement reform examine military compensation issues in general, this report focuses on the key features of the five major military retirement reform proposals, eliminating the discussions of methodology, modeling, cost analyses, and cost projections that accompany them.