Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Alabama) announced at a House Rules Committee hearing on Tuesday that the National Defense Authorization Act of 2025 (NDAA) would give junior soldiers a 20% pay increase.

The volunteer army Struggling to hit hiring targetsRogers, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, highlighted Congress' efforts to make the military more competitive with private and public sector employers.

Rogers made the remarks during a House Rules Committee hearing in support of the Fiscal Year 2025 Military Quality of Life Improvement and National Defense Authorization Act.

“For the first time in decades, this year's defense bill has a different, shorter title,” Rogers said. “It's the 'Service Member Quality of Life Improvement and National Defense Authorization Act.' We did that to emphasize the significant contribution this bill will make to improving the quality of life for service members and their families.”

“Service members should not have to live in squalid conditions,” Rogers said. “Military families should not have to rely on food stamps to feed their children, and no one who serves our country should have to wait weeks to see a doctor or mental health professional. Yet that is exactly what many of our service members, especially junior ranks, experience. This bill would go a long way to solving this problem.”

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“The bill includes a 20 percent pay increase for junior soldiers,” Rogers said, “increases housing and meal allowances, and improves cost-of-living calculations. The bill authorizes $766 million above the budget request to upgrade existing barracks and build new ones, allowing the services to pursue public-private partnerships to provide better single-family housing.”

“This bill will reduce dangerous medical wait times by waiving specialty care referral requirements and increasing the number of DoD physicians and nurses with new special hiring and pay authority,” Rogers continued. “The bill improves access to child care for military families by providing more than $206 million to build new DoD child care centers and fully funding the Child Care Fee Assistance Program to offset the cost of private child care. It also fills DoD child care staff vacancies by making salaries and benefits competitive with private industry.”

“This bill will help military spouses obtain and retain employment by making it easier for them to transfer professional certifications between states,” Rogers added.

The issue of professional licenses and certifications not transferring across state lines is one that the Alabama Legislature has addressed repeatedly over the past four years.

“The bill also gives the Department of Defense the authority to expedite the hiring of military spouses and maintain their employment when they change duty station,” Rogers said. “These improvements are the result of recommendations we received from the special committee that Senator Smith and I established last year to take an in-depth look at military quality of life issues.”

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“We are providing historic improvements to the quality of life for our service members because, now more than ever, we need to recruit and retain the best and brightest,” Rogers said. “The threats our nation faces, particularly from China, are more complex and challenging than at any time in the last 40 years. To thwart these threats, the FY25 NDAA will:

• We will reform our procurement authorities and encourage private sector innovation to accelerate the adoption of breakthrough new technologies that would give us an advantage in a conflict with China.
• We will strengthen our security partnerships with Taiwan and our Pacific allies.
• Provide adequate funding for the modernization of our nuclear deterrent.
• Protecting American military bases, defense supply chains, and academic research from Chinese espionage.
• Build a Pacific logistics network necessary for the military to conduct operations against China.
• It also includes new investments to rebuild and revitalize our industrial base to ensure we can provide the systems we need to prevail in any conflict.

“With the growing threat from China, it is also critical that we restore the military's focus on lethal force,” Rogers said. “The FY25 NDAA will accomplish this by ending divisive policies that have undermined recruiting, force cohesion, and military readiness.”

Rogers suggested that managing existing defense spending is key to achieving these goals. “We all know that deterring these threats costs money. But we also know there's a limit to how much we can spend. That's why this NDAA is focused on making the Department of Defense lean. When weapons systems can't meet the threats we face, we'll cut them. In fact, this bill includes savings of over $30 billion by cutting systems that can't withstand a conflict with China and curbing programs like the F-35 that don't meet requirements.”

The bipartisan NDAA passed the Rogers Armed Services Committee by a vote of 57-1 and will now go to the full U.S. House of Representatives for a vote.

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