Military pay raises have exceeded private-sector pay growth every year since 1999. Great news, indeed. But it didn't happen by accident, and it could be about to stop.

All through the 1980s and 1990s, when military raises were capped below the average American's, MOAA tracked and recalculated the growing "pay gap" each year. When retention crashed in the late 1990s (as MOAA had predicted), the association worked with Congress to enact six years of plused-up raises aimed at drawing down the gap.

As of 2006, it would take an additional 4.5-percent increase to eliminate the gap. The increase proposed for FY 2007 - which includes a set of mid-year "targeted" raises for selected members - would shave another 0.5 percentage point off that.

The Pentagon says that will be enough to establish a new pay comparability standard - the 75th pay percentile for civilians of similar age and education. MOAA is willing to consider that. But at press time, we were still waiting to see the numbers.

Col. Steve Strobridge, USAF-Ret., director of MOAA government relations