An Evaluation of the Effectiveness of the US Army Enlistment Bonus. Volume 1

Abstract : The purpose of this study was to evaluate the Army's enlistment bonus programs by analyzing four facets of the incentive; the accession supply effects of the bonus on specific bonus skills with overall Army enlistments; the retention behavior of bonus recipients relative to non-bonus recipients for demographically similar cohorts; the extent of losses from combat arms to other skills for demographically similar cohorts of bonus and non-bonus enlistees; the cost-effectiveness of the enlistment bonus when compared to increasing basic pay, recruiting and advertising; and the cost-effectiveness of the bonus as a method of increasing the average term of enlistment.