The extra $250 a month never covered much. Not the higher utility bills when one parent was home alone managing everything. Not the emergency child care when deployment orders came through. Not the gas money for those late-night drives to care for a sick child when your spouse is 7,000 miles away.
The monthly payment, called Family Separation Allowance, hasn't changed since 2002.
Twenty-three years of inflation later, military families are about to receive their first raise. Advocates say it's long overdue, but it's smaller than Congress authorized.
The fiscal 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, signed Oct. 18 by President Donald Trump, bumps the payment from $250 to $300 per month. That's a 20% increase for service members involuntarily separated from their families for 30 days or more due to deployments, sea duty or other assignments.
The Pentagon Already Had Authority to Go Higher
Here's the frustrating part. Congress authorized the Pentagon to raise the allowance to $400 a month in the fiscal 2024 defense bill two years ago. The department just never did it. Defense officials called the 2024 increase "discretionary" and said they needed more time to study military compensation. Meanwhile, military families kept getting $250 a month while everything else got more expensive.
"It has been 20 years since the last increase of the Family Separation Allowance. It's time to bring it in line with the current cost of living," Kelly Hruska, government relations director for the National Military Family Association, told Military Times in January 2024. "This is what Congress intended."
Rep. Tony Gonzales, the Texas Republican who pushed for the original increase, wasn't happy either. "Our military families make great sacrifices every day," he said. "I will continue to work with the Department of Defense to ensure this boost is made a reality." That was in January 2024. He's still waiting.
Why $50 More Actually Matters
The payment kicks in when service members are separated from their dependents for at least 30 consecutive days. That includes deployments, unaccompanied tours in places such as Korea, and sea duty for sailors.
The money is tax-free and comes on top of other pay and allowances. It's meant to help cover the extra costs that hit when one parent is managing everything alone: paying someone to mow the lawn, emergency babysitters, the higher electricity bill from leaving lights on for security, the cost of video calls to stay connected.
In 2002, $250 covered more of those costs. Today it covers less, and the gap keeps growing. The $300 monthly rate in the new bill helps, but it's still $100 short of what Congress said would be appropriate two years ago.
For a six-month deployment, the increase means an extra $300 over the entire separation. That's real money for military families, many of whom already struggle with housing costs and food insecurity. But it doesn't make up for two decades of frozen payments.
Part of a Broader Push
The family separation increase sits among other quality-of-life improvements in the $900.6 billion defense bill. Service members are getting a 3.8% pay raise across the board. The bill also requires a study on improving how the military calculates housing allowances to keep up with rising rental costs.
Read More: Trump Signs into Law the 2026 Military Pay Raise. Here’s How Much You’ll Get.
For families dealing with a deployment right now, the new Family Separation Allowance rate should show up in January’s paychecks.
Is $300 a month enough? Probably not. But it's better than waiting another 20 years for the Pentagon to decide whether military families deserve a cost-of-living adjustment.
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