Over the past trio of years, the United States armed forces shelled out approximately six billion dollars in the pursuit of enlisting and retaining forces.
U.S. Military Increases Recruiting and Retention Bonuses to Address Enlistment Shortfalls
WASHINGTON—Over the past three years, the U.S. military has spent more than $6 billion to boost enlistment and retain service members, according to service-provided funding totals. The escalating spending comes as the military grapples with enlistment shortfalls, particularly amid Covid-19 restrictions that halted public events, fairs, and school visits that recruiters typically rely on.
The military branches, including the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines, have seen a surge in financial incentives to reenlist, with the Navy outspending the others. The Navy spent significantly more in 2023, when it faced a substantial enlistment deficit. Despite being smaller in size, the Navy outspent the Army in total over the three-year period.
The Navy also allocated vast retention bonuses to approximately 70,000 service members annually for the past three years. This is more than double the number of troops the Army granted retention bonuses to each year, despite the Army's greater size.
Adm. James Kilby, the Navy's vice chief of operations, stated before a Senate Armed Services subcommittee in March that the high rate of reenlistments among enlisted sailors persists, however, officer reenlistments pose a challenge in specific jobs such as aviation, explosive ordnance disposal, surface and submarine warfare, health professionals, and naval special operations. According to Kilby, the Navy has struggled to fill at-sea jobs and uses financial incentives to mitigate the issue.
The Army, the largest service, spent the most on recruiting bonuses in 2022 and 2024, but the Navy outspent it in 2023. The Air Force increased its spending on recruiting bonuses in 2023 but lowered it the following year. The Space Force does not currently authorize enlistment bonuses.
The Marine Corps and the Space Force consistently meet their recruiting targets, although the Marine Corps had to draw heavily from its delayed-entry candidate pool in 2022 to reach its target. The Marines, smaller than the Army and Air Force, allocate the least on bonuses and tend to distribute the amount among a larger number of service members.
The military services strategically allocate their recruiting and retention money to bolster hard-to-fill jobs, such as cyber, intelligence, and special operations forces. In addition to addressing specific roles, they use bonuses to attract personnel to combat, armor, and artillery positions in the Army and Marine Corps.
While the Army, which has faced the most significant recruiting struggles over the past decade, relies on a suite of new programs and policies to attract young people, the Navy’s issues surfaced more recently and required increased spending on bonuses to reverse the trend.
According to experts, the reasons behind the increased spending on recruiting and retention bonuses include competition for talent, demographic shifts, operational demands, and economic factors. To obtain specific details on the U.S. military’s spending, consultation of official defense budget documents or contact with the Department of Defense is advised.
The high competition for talent in the industry, coupled with demographic shifts and operational demands, has led the U.S. military to significantly increase funding for recruiting and retention bonuses across various branches of the armed forces, including the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines, in an attempt to address enlistment shortfalls. The financial incentives provided by these branches have shown to impact not only the enlisted ranks but also specific jobs, such as aviation, explosive ordnance disposal, and naval special operations, where officer reenlistments pose a challenge.
