Page:Legislative History of the AAF and USAF.djvu/94

 �This Page Declassified lAW EO12958 Buildifl tke Poitwar Ar Force USAF FimocL S'Dms  87 In order to prevent widespread hardship ior the famiI1es oœ enlisted men whose mili- tary pay alone would not be sufficient to support their immedaate dependents Con- gress felt that it was necessary to prowde allowances for the families o! service men during the mobihzation. Thin was ac- complished through the enactment of Pub- he Law 771, 81 Cong., 2 Sess. (approved 8 September 1950), and entitled the pendents' Assistance Act of 1950. This measure amended the compensation act on a temporary basra to provide dependency allowances for those lowest grade enhsted men who had dependents not receiving such allowances under the 1949 act and slightly increasing the allowances to other personnel wth more than two dependents. The erosting basic allowance for quarters for personnel with two or less dependents m grades E-4 through E-7 were continued at $6.50, monthly, and when there were over two dependents t was increased to $75.00. The 10wet enlisted grades, E-1 through E-S, which were not entitled to quarters allow- ances under the 1949 act, were authorized a quarters allowance of $45 in cases where there wes One dependent, $67.50 ior two, and $75 for more than two. The payment of these allowances was made contingent on the individual rectaring the allowance mak- ing an allotment to his dependents of not less than the amount of the allowance plus $40 from his pay in the case of personnel in grade E-1 through E-3; $60 for per- sonnel in grades E-4 and E-5; and $80 ior personnel it graes E-6 and E-7. * The Career Compensation Act did not olve ,the problem of providing adequate pay as the cost of bring continued to rise, and shot up to new heights after the United State became involved m the Korean con- flict. The Consumers Price Index of the Bureau of Labor Statistms increased nearly 10 per cent between October 1949 and Au- 'gust 19.512 In the fall o 1951 hearings were held by a subcommittee of the House Cofnmittee on Armed Services on H. R. 5664, a bill authorizing an increase in the pay and allowances for members of the armed services, Secretary of Deiense Robert A. Lovett, Gen. Hoyt Vandenberg, and other distangmshed C]Vlhan and military leaders testafled in favor of such an increase of pay. General Vandenberg urged an increase on the grounds of increasing cost of living and the necessity to counteract the effect of the relaxation of rental control and of the tendency to curtml the fringe benefits of the armed setvines. Vandenberg felt that pay ncreases were necessary in order to compensate/or these developments and to make it possible to mmntain the Air Force on a practically all-volunteer barns and at a high stage of morale3  It was also fedt that the pay of the personnel of the mfitary es- tablishment should be increased to keep n line with the recent 10 per cent increase in the pay of roytitan employees of the federal government. Finally on 19 May 1952 legtaton was enacted which amended the Career Compensation Act of 1949 to in- crease the pay and allowances o members of the uniformed services3  In the summer of 1949, before the final enactment of the legislation intended to improve the pay structure of the armed setwoes, Congress also took action to re- lieve the situation whmh existed as a result of the shortage of housing for military per- sonnel and their famihes. By the passage of the Wherry Act, approved 8 August 1949, Congress created a Military Housing Insur- ance Fund to be used to insure mortages under the FHA supervision, so as to facili- tate the financing of private enterprise in the construction of rental housing on or in areas adjacent to Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force installations2 ' The Wherry Act was amended early in 1950 to make t easier for air bases to ar- range for houmn construction with private funds. By the end of the fiscal year 1951, 6,364 o 24,888 family units certified to the FHA for Air Force housing had been com- pleted. The expansion of the Air Force was so rapxd and the consequent need for hous- ing was so great, however, that even these measures were to prove insufficient2" It was not sufficient, of course, to enact such legislation as the Career Compensa- lion Act and the Wherry Act, which-were intended to encourage officers and enlisted THIS PAGE Declassflied lAW EO12958