Women service members can pay at least twice as much for their military uniforms as their male counterparts, a new government watchdog report found.
Call it a pink tax.
In some cases, women can pay even more. Over a 20-year career, an enlisted woman Marine is likely to pay nearly 10 times what a male Marine may pay out of pocket for his uniforms. In the Navy, enlisted women sailors can pay up to three times what their male counterparts pay. In the Army, women enlisted soldiers are likely to pay nearly double. In the Air Force, men may have thousands of dollars in surplus after being reimbursed for their uniforms over 20 years, while women owe, the Government Accountability Office report found.
The total initial value of military uniform elements for newly enlisted troops varies from about $1,600 to $2,400. While the branches provide annual clothing allowances to replace or obtain required items, across all the service branches, women were reimbursed on average about 8 percentage points lower than men. Some items are also specifically excluded from the clothing allowance, which means they're not reimbursed, increasing out-of-pocket costs for women and men.
But, on average, the total value of those excluded items was more than double for women than men, putting the burden on purchasing non-reimbursable items on women in the military to the tune of hundreds or thousands of dollars.
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The services also aren't even consistent about which items they reimburse or don't. While the Air Force and Marine Corps reimburse for the all-weather coat, the Army doesn't, for example.
The Department of Defense has made about 18 changes to uniforms over the past 10 years, generally making uniform items more expensive. Many of those changes disproportionately increased out-of-pocket costs for women in the services, particularly women officers.
When the Marine Corps discovered it could save $600,000 by switching to gender-neutral uniforms, the service passed that cost to women Marines, requiring them to purchase new uniforms out of pocket, according to the report.
The service branches are allowed to individually decide what uniform items they will reimburse and which pieces they will not. As part of initial clothing items, women service members may be provided "with a one-time cash allowance to purchase items such as underwear, bras and stockings," GAO investigators wrote in their report. Those allowances ranged from about $125 to $207 in the last five years.
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But women in the military don't receive more money to replace those items and have to pay out of pocket through the rest of their careers once the initial money is spent. Other items they must continue to pay for include "hand bags for the Army, swimsuits for the Navy and dress pumps for the Air Force and Marine Corps," the report said.
Male enlisted troops also receive an initial stipend to purchase similar items that does not continue through their careers, but "those items are generally less costly to replace than similar items that females must replace out-of-pocket. For example, the costs for items such as bras, underwear, and hosiery for females are higher than underwear for males," according to the report.
These discrepancies in uniform costs conflict with the Defense Department's stated equity principle of "equal pay for equal work" since women are paying more for their uniforms and not receiving sufficient reimbursement or allowance for them compared to men, meaning those women are effectively paid less.
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Military officials also told GAO investigators that at times women's uniforms cost substantially more because there are fewer women in the services and the branches choose to pass that cost on to the individual troops.
"For example, the Army estimates the new Army Green Service Uniform dress coat will cost about $163 for enlisted females and $82 for enlisted males," the report found.
The GAO recommended that the secretary of Defense should ensure that the Pentagon and service branches develop consistent standards for deciding which uniform items qualify for reimbursement to help reduce the disparity between enlisted men and women (officers do not receive uniform reimbursement, only a one-time $400 allowance).
GAO recommended that the Pentagon periodically review items included in the uniform replacement allowances for enlisted troops to prevent continued disparities. Service branches also should submit plans for changing uniforms, including estimated costs, to Pentagon leaders for review to provide accountability on uniform cost equity, according to GAO.
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The GAO's investigation of uniform costs was ordered by the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act. Rep. Julia Brownley, D-California, proposed the amendment to the massive defense bill to analyze gender disparities in uniform costs after she said she had heard from women service members about the higher costs they were burdened with. Brownley chairs the Women Veterans Task Force in the House.
"One of the issues I hear about most from currently-serving servicewomen is that they are consistently required to pay more for uniforms than men,” Brownley said after the report's public release. “This report shows that both enlisted women and female officers are required to spend many times more than men on their uniforms – which is at odds with the Department of Defense’s principle of equal pay for equal work. I applaud the DOD for accepting the GAO’s recommendations, and I look forward to working with Secretary Austin to ensure further equity for America’s service women."
Women service members and veterans have complained for years that they faced unequal cost burdens for ill-fitting uniforms that cost more to tailor. The report's findings were not news to many women who are or have served.
Women in the services have also consistently raised alarms about ill-fitting body armor, but the GAO report did not specifically examine body armor disparities between genders.
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Brownley promised legislative action to address the inequalities revealed by the investigation.
“I have worked to address gender disparities in uniform costs as part of my work to bring gender equality to DOD and VA," she said. "I am committed to crafting legislation to rectify the concerns laid out in this report.”
Read the full report.
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Reach Abbie Bennett: abbie@connectingvets.com or @AbbieRBennett.
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