In the President’s 2024 budget request, total military compensation is $551 billion, including veterans' benefits. That amount represents an increase of 134 percent since 1999 after removing the effects of inflation.
Compensation for military personnel is found in both the defense and nondefense parts of the federal budget. Defense funding, in the Department of Defense’s (DoD’s) budget, is mostly for current military personnel. Nondefense funding in the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is mostly for former military personnel.
Since 2000, the total budget for military compensation has been rising steadily, even though the number of military personnel and veterans has been declining. Spending by VA has accounted for most of that increase, rising from a small fraction of the total to about 60 percent of military compensation in the President’s 2024 budget request.
In the 2024 budget request, total military compensation is $551 billion. (Of that total, $230 billion is for DoD and $321 billion is for VA.) That amount represents an increase of 144 percent since 1980 (and 134 percent since 1999) after removing the effects of inflation.
