Evaluation of Basic Allowance for Housing

The Director of the 14^th Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation asked CNA to review the statutory requirements and methodologies used to calculate the basic allowance for housing (BAH) to ensure military members can procure suitable housing. A companion report studies analogous issues for other military pay allowances.
Section 662 of the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act requires the Department of Defense (DOD) to report to Congress such topics as the following:

• The efficiency and accuracy of the current system used to calculate BAH
• The appropriateness of using mean and median housing costs in such calculations
• The suitability of the six standard housing profiles in relation to the average family sizes of servicemembers, disaggregated by uniformed service, rank, and military housing area (MHA)
• The flexibility of BAH to respond to changes in real estate markets
• The feasibility of including information, furnished by federal entities, regarding school districts in calculating BAH
• Whether to calculate BAH more frequently, including in response to a sudden change in the housing market
• Whether to publish the methods used by the Secretary of Defense to calculate BAH on a publicly accessible website of the DOD