World News – USA – Here’s what will happen to your Housing Benefit Rates in 2021

The basic allowance for housing benefit increases by an average of 2. 9 percent in January, defense officials announced today.

The 2. BAH’s 9 percent surge spans the spectrum and doesn’t guarantee everyone will see that surge – or a surge. However, if the BAH rate drops in a certain area, the BAH will not decrease for service members already living there, so those who have made long-term commitments with rental contracts will not be penalized. Service members can use DoD’s Base Compensation Calculator to calculate their new rates.

DoD estimates that approximately $ 23 billion will be paid to BAH to approximately 1 million service members in 2021. That’s an estimate of $ 22 billion for 2020.

BAH rates vary based on annual housing cost data for more than 300 military residential areas in the United States. S.. . , including Alaska and Hawaii. The BAH also varies depending on the salary level and whether the service member has relatives.

The services and local military housing authorities are helping with the collection. Local commands provide inputs that are used to identify the neighborhoods in which data is being collected and help direct the collection to suitable apartment complexes and individual units.

When determining the BAH, the officials take into account the average current market rent and the average supply costs of an area in the total housing costs. This total housing cost is calculated for six types of apartments based on the type of house and the number of bedrooms in each area. The BAH rates are calculated for each salary level with and without dependents.

In accordance with the authority granted by Congress in 2016, the BAH is no longer designed to cover 100 percent of housing costs in an area. The cost portion of the service member out of pocket is now calculated at around 5 percent of the actual cost of rent and ancillary costs. DoD estimates that the out-of-pocket expenses included in the BAH rates for 2021 will range from $ 70 to $ 158 per month, and will vary based on salary grade and whether or not the service member has dependents. These expenses increase compared to the BAH rates for 2020, where expenses vary between $ 68 and $ 148 per month.

Again, these are averages and the cost of service members varies depending on the type of home they rent. If service members live in privatized apartments, their rent equals the BAH amount.

Sign up for the Early Bird Brief – a daily round-up of military and defense news from around the world.

Karen has worked on military families, quality of life, and consumer issues for the Military Times for over 30 years and is co-author of a chapter on media coverage of military families in the book « A Plan to Help Military Families ». « She previously worked for newspapers in Guam, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Florida. and Athens, Ga.

Basic Housing Allowance, Department of Defense, 2021, Housing