High 36 Question

J

jatton

PEB Forum Regular Member
Registered Member
Brand new here - thanks for the site full of great info. Question about how high 36 is calculated for chapter 61 retirement. A scenario:
  • member starts career on active duty (does 5 years)
  • transfers to active reserve and spends time in reserves (6 years)
  • goes back on active duty and shortly thereafter (6 months) is injured and found unfit, injury is service connected
Assuming the DoD rating is over 30%, I understand the two options for disability retirement calculation - DoD rating % vs. years in service - but how is the high 36 calculated? Is it based on the previous 36 months of service including the reserve time (6 months active duty & 30 months reserve)? Is it only the active duty time (6 months current active duty time & 30 months from previous active duty time)? I haven't been able to find any resources that answer this question.

I hope the question makes sense. Thanks.
 
You would take the highest pay you have received for your entire career for 36 months and average them together. You would also convert your reserve time to active time. You add the converted time and active time together. You also need to find out if you are BRS or legacy. Legacy is 2.5 percent for every good year and BRS is 2 percent for every good year.
 
iamthewalrus016 said:
You would take the highest pay you have received for your entire career for 36 months and average them together. You would also convert your reserve time to active time. You add the converted time and active time together. You also need to find out if you are BRS or legacy. Legacy is 2.5 percent for every good year and BRS is 2 percent for every good year.
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This is assuming you go with the years in service method and not the DoD % method, correct?

What if you go with the DoD rating % method? It's your rating x high 36. What is the high 36 based on in that case?
 
Also calculating your pay based on the DOD percentage is kinda pointless unless you are an officer with high base pay
 
iamthewalrus016 said:
Also calculating your pay based on the DOD percentage is kinda pointless unless you are an officer with high base pay
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Why is this? They are both multiplied by your base pay, just one is based on rating and the other is based on time in service, right?
 
if you are medically retired your VA pay is most likely going to be higher than your medical retirement pay. The scenario where that isn’t the case is officers with high base pay.

Your reserve time doesn’t count day for day. It’s points based. You need to convert points to time and add that to the straight time you have from active duty.

Let’s say you were an E5 over 4 years for a year. That’s your first year to add to your high 3 calculation. Then find the next highest paid year after that. If you were in the reserves you would just take the base pay of your rank and use that. So let’s say last year you were a reservist all year. Same E5 rank over 4. Use E5 pay over 4 for that years calculation. Find the 3 highest paid years of base pay (usually the last 3 years you are in) and find the average
 
iamthewalrus016 said:
if you are medically retired your VA pay is most likely going to be higher than your medical retirement pay. The scenario where that isn’t the case is officers with high base pay.
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Ok yes this makes sense now thank you.

iamthewalrus016 said:
Let’s say you were an E5 over 4 years for a year. That’s your first year to add to your high 3 calculation. Then find the next highest paid year after that. If you were in the reserves you would just take the base pay of your rank and use that. So let’s say last year you were a reservist all year. Same E5 rank over 4. Use E5 pay over 4 for that years calculation. Find the 3 highest paid years of base pay (usually the last 3 years you are in) and find the average
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I think this is the answer to my poorly worded question.

iamthewalrus016 said:
So let’s say last year you were a reservist all year. Same E5 rank over 4. Use E5 pay over 4 for that years calculation.
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Specifically this part. So even though I didn't actually receive this base pay all year because I was a reservist and not on active duty getting paid full time, they treat it like I was and use this number?

I guess the point is moot due to your point above, I'm just trying to understand it all.
 
jatton said:
Ok yes this makes sense now thank you.


I think this is the answer to my poorly worded question.


Specifically this part. So even though I didn't actually receive this base pay all year because I was a reservist and not on active duty getting paid full time, they treat it like I was and use this number?

I guess the point is moot due to your point above, I'm just trying to understand it all.
Click to expand...

Yeah the last bit… you are still whatever rank with whatever time in service while you’re are a reservist. If you were activated for a deployment they would pay you based on your rank and actual time in service. They are doing that while you’re activated for your weekend drill it’s just prorated down to the 3 days or whatever your are activated for
 
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