Air National Guard Benefits and Pay

hey guys and welcome back to airman vision if you're new consider subscribing today we talked to andre acosta who is a tech sergeant in the air national guard as a recruiter and we asked him a bunch of questions about benefits and pay [Music] all right we have tech sergeant acosta here i want to just have you kind of introduce yourself as to what you do with the air national guard uh how people can contact you and then a quick overview of your air force career so people can understand a little bit more about you yes i'm andre acosta i'm a recruiter for the california air national guard my contact information feel free to text or call seven two 805-415-7269-415-7266 nine a little bit about my career i've been in the air force 18 years now 13 years are active and five years have been in the air guard i i've loved the experience i've gotten assigned in a lot of the different locations my first duty station was in beale air force base in northern california then i went to osan air force base in in south korea then langley virginia and hickam hawaii and then i transitioned into the hawaii air national guard then the wyoming air national guard and now the california air national guard so i'm originally from southern california born and raised and this will be my last tour with the air force so i got to to end it where i started here in california so i'm i'm super happy about that and and and i just get to give back give back to all the people who are in my same position uh when i was getting started give information and i really want to thank airman vision for allowing us to you know shed some light and and talk about you know the different opportunities in the international guard i just want to answer your questions casually you know just you know not to be so constricted as in a uniform and stuff and just just give some gems out and help people out how long have you been a recruiter for the air national guard three years three okay so you've been in the you said you've been in the guard for five years total yeah but you you did two years in your job and then you ended up getting picked up to become a recruiter yeah so i was i did 18 months in in contracting that's a government purchasing job for the air national guard and and then i started applying throughout the country for recruiter jobs like man i've always wanted to be a recruiter yeah where do they have these uh full-time agr which are active guard reserve spots and you know it's actually a little bit competitive and for good reason right because you want to make sure you have the right person wyoming you know was graciously took me on and and that's where i started my recruiting experience and my recruiting career so i was a recruiter there for about 18 months then opportunity came for me to come back home and you know i had to jump on that and so now i've been here the last 18 months and i love recruiting it's the best job i've had in the air force you know i've had three jobs it was a analyst and then contracting and then recruiting recruiting i love the most because it's just so gratifying to help somebody you know change their life and have a positive impact you know that that's the best thing for me so that's awesome all right so today's video we're going to be talking about a lot of the benefits that go into being in the air national guard and what those opportunities are to possibly better your life or take care of your family with so the first question probably one of the most asked questions is what is the pay in air national guard how does pay work so we do have a pay chart that you can reference it's on the you just look at military pay and then there's a reserve chart and you would look at like e1 e2 or e3 are usually the starting ranks so it's anywhere gonna be between those three ranks right and the differences between e1 e2 and e3 is going to be based on what job you're selecting or how much college you have under your belt now pay is gonna be based on on those ranks so to give an average for a drill weekend which is that one week in a month it's about two hundred dollars a weekend so a hundred dollars a day or two hundred dollars a weekend okay and that's when you're first starting out yep and that's part time now as a full-time member starting out um so like when you go to basic training for example or you're in technical school which is a job school those are considered full-time so you're going to get your base pay which is your rank driven pay that's taxable income that's approximately two thousand dollars and then you're gonna if you provide a lease like you have a credible lease while you're away in that basic training textual you'll get basic allowance for housing or bah and that's going to be based on your zip code so here in southern california it's pretty pricey right so a lot of our brand new members once they provide a lease they're making an additional two thousand dollars in bah and that's tax free so the cumulative of that two thousand dollar base pay plus that two thousand dollar bah is four thousand so i know that's a long-winded answer so if you're only doing drill weekend one week in a month you know it's about 200 a weekend but when you do go full time and you're a member of you know the california air guard here in southern california you could be making 4 000 a month full time right off the bat okay and then as you stay in longer the you obviously get paid more based on your rank so as you as you promote more you get paid more and then does it work the same way active duty the even if you stay the same rank the longer that you stay in like every two years you would get a raise even if your rank didn't go up so it worked the same way with with the guard where it does so you would get a little bit of a pay bump every two years even if you stay the same rank a nice thing too is government work we do get cost of living allowances so like last year we had a three percent increase in pay you know just because inflation things like that so that's really cool being a government employee and getting some of those benefits okay so this next question is on top of how much you do get paid when do you get paid so you had mentioned two different things that the active component and then just the one weekend a month to the part time so how often would you get paid in those two scenarios yeah so when you say active i usually say full time just not to confuse people with activity okay i'll do but just like just like uh and i'm gonna say active duty but like j the full-time first and fifteenth would be just just like active duty like you and i when we were both active you get paid on full-time status first in the 15th but the unique factor is that drill weekend right so when you're working one week in a month right so it usually be about a week or two after that drill weekend so of course that that drill weekend could you know be any one of the four weekends in that month you know we try not to work super bowl weekend of course you know but but so about a week or two after you'll get that check and it's nice additional income does the air national guard offer health care because health care is one reason why a lot of people get specific jobs or stay in jobs is because health care is expensive it's definitely not cheap in the united states so what are the benefits like with that if you if you go just the one week in a month right we're not talking about the active component because or the full time component if you go full time i'm assuming there's definitely health care benefits just like there would be with active duty but what about that one week in a month if you're just part-time do you you still get a benefit from health care yeah so as a as a part-time member of the air national guard you get access to tricare reserve select that's the health care plan that we offer and it's fairly affordable as an individual member it's approximately 50 dollars a month right and that's going to change a little bit year to year but that's why giving you that round number and then as a family plan it's 250 a month for to cover your whole family and that's super affordable we do have a lot of members who stay in just just for that because at 250 a month for you know a family your spouse plus two or three kids right on the civilian side that can easily be like five six hundred seven hundred all right when you come here for my wife right now just by herself because i'm covered through the va but my wife right it's like 480 or 450 a month just her alone see that and so you know like you said 250 for a family so if you got you know a spouse and two kids you know i was like that's cheaper than it is just for one adult right now in our family and so yeah that's definitely a huge benefit so what would it be like with with the active or what would it be like with the full-time status so if you're full-time it's going to revert to like active duty which you and i both know you're paying like a an automatic like allotment or excuse me deduction of about 50 dollars but it's so minor so they'd be fully covered yeah just like they would on active duty when you're on full-time status okay so pretty much you uh you offer the same health care as active duty it's not anything crazily different or or unique in that aspect it's the same thing but yeah with the guard aspect of the part time is you get a benefit and that's honestly like that's a better or cheaper plan than it is working full-time at some other places so you might even have some people that join the guard just for the health care aspect but then they go and they do contracting where they don't get health care through their work or something where they can uh you know make a lot of money but they don't offer a health care plan with that job and if you join the guard then you just kind of tack on that that health care benefit right there that's exactly it it's nice having that that air guard access to the air guard benefits that's going to complement whatever they're doing in the civilian side especially at times like right now right with everything that's going on in instability in the economy in 2021 a lot of people are out of work right so having access to health care super important especially for your family right you don't this is not a good time to get sick yeah so the worst case scenario would be if you didn't have health care so having access that affordable health care is important and then the nice thing too and i i'm going on a segway here but like this year has been a great year for the for the guard for the national guard overall in every state we've been able to have access to a lot of activations to uh to essentially keep our income going right and support our state so whether that's vaccination sites uh working at vaccination sites food distribution sites or supporting law enforcement and civil unrest so you know you got to think about it we're helping our local community our states right but then also that that air guard member who might have lost their full-time job right now they're because they've been able to ramp up on the air guard side they keep food on the table they keep their income going so it's supplements as a as a full-time position during those those crisis yeah so you it keeps you afloat during a recession heck yeah that's that's really good to know because uh yeah definitely just in this last year 2020 was a crazy year you know so if your job becomes unstable um you know you can always look into those opportunities to help with potential either like you've mentioned in another video tdys or deployments or like this you said activations during certain um like health crisis that's happened or natural disasters anything where you know they need the military there to help uh you can take on that full-time position and bring in income exactly and and you know being you know because you and i were both active duty previously and the the air guard because we're primarily state first we're state air force you get access to state missions that active duty does not so like doing these things like like that i mentioned the vaccination site food distribution the state and their governors that's going to be state specific so the national guard is the ones who are going to have access to those missions it's almost like uh you know it's like a double bonus where you you get the to be fulfilled with you know almost like a volunteer thing but you're actually getting paid to do that because like you swore an oath to be able to you know have to go and protect these people and protect your community and so you can volunteer for that spot but even volunteering you're going to be getting paid and so it's like almost like you're you're getting to help your community and take care of them but then like that's your job is to like help people and take care of them so it's like and for most people that'd be super fulfilling to know like i think most people would probably take jobs if there were more jobs out there that paid to help people in that manner you know but like that's a lot of stuff is volunteer basis where you know you have to volunteer your time and your energy and resources but you don't get paid for it versus this is an aspect where you kind of get that reward but then you also get a paycheck for it too so it's like it's a huge event there yeah and you're being of course rewarded uh on the financial side but also it's very gratifying and just be able to help your your local community i mean these are the people that are you know your neighbors so that's that's huge um and super rewarding another question that our subscribers ask is do you qualify for a va loan they just changed this so traditionally let's say prior 2021 right you need to serve at least 90 days of active duty to get a va loan or finish your six year term in the national guard those were the criteria fast forward to 2021 they made it that if you get 90 days of activated orders you don't have to support a deployment you don't have to support active duty but just 90 days cumulative to include a lot of the activation that i mentioned before vaccination sites you know food distribution civil unrest you get the va home loan so it's either those 90 days of just full time on the guard or complete your six year term so basically like within the last three months like it probably like tens of thousands people just got their va loan eligibility so it's incredible that's a great opportunity because uh we we ended up getting our first home in las vegas with the va home loan and it definitely helps with uh it's more of like a streamlined process and then also you don't have to uh well for one like you have like a guaranteed income especially as active duty but you know like your finances are a little more stable so like banks love that or they want you to be stable but then also the fees that it weigh is very very helpful and then you don't have to pay the extra mortgage insurance that most people pay if you don't have 20 down on your home loan it waives all of that so you don't need to have anything down so it makes getting a home more affordable because some people always worry about i don't know i can't afford 20 down on a house you know it's like a 200 000 house that's 40 thousand dollars that you need yeah and two two hundred thousand in in southern california is not even a house that's a garage yeah so it's out here to save like the average house is about 500k like half a million because it's just so expensive out here so you're about a hundred thousand dollars down to not pay mortgage insurance but it's like yeah it's not really feasible for a lot of people so i got my house helped raise some fees yeah i got i got my house out here but without the va loan i wouldn't been able to do it in fact um all my friends from out here that aren't military none of them have a house you know just because of how expensive it is but all my military friends do you know because of that va home loan so that's huge i always tell people uh whenever you have your first housewarming and all your friends see the house and your family and they're like they're doing all right you know i'm proud of you i'm proud of you yeah they're doing good things so one of the benefits of active duty at least i don't know how this works with the air national guard is when you get out of serving or when you you finally decide to cut ties with serving you can qualify for va disability how does that even work with the air national guard if you just have served part-time do they have the same requirements to be able to apply for va disability yes same requirements you know you can absolutely still apply for va disability that whatever you're claiming does has to have happened when you are on orders so as a as a guard member you just have to be mindful of you know the time you were on orders and then getting whatever issue um documented yeah and having that documentation so we do encourage our members if they have an issue you know in their own orders get make sure they get that documented in their medical records so they can if you get injured don't try to just throw some dirt on it and toughen it up or toughen up over it you know actually go to the doctor and get it checked out because if you start to have long-term issues from that injury but you never you just tried to tough it out if you never went to the doctor then there's really no history there or there's no documentation that this even happened to you so then that might have been happened you might have had an injury happen because of your service but if you just tried to be the tough guy you know then you get out and you're having issues with it and you're trying to get assistance through the va and they're like they they can't prove that any of this is even legitimate from when you were in so that's exactly how active duty works in the same realm of making sure that you actually go and you document you know your injuries and stuff like that because you'd have people that would like get a cut or something and it like sometimes if you get a little nick or something it's like a band-aid fix it but some people get cuts and it's like yeah you might need stitches so like ah no i'm fine i'll just super glue it right but then it's like if that gets infected or if there's any issues they're like you know you try to order like say there was actually like nerve damage like you get a cut and they're like i'll just super glue it right but there's nerve damage and then like you know a year later they start having issues with their nerves well like then if if you get out at that point and you try to go to the doctor like oh you have nerve damage like from this cut you know and you're like oh but then you try to go back and tell you know the va no no this happened when i was in and they're like we have no documentation of that like we don't if there's no proof that it happened when you were in they can't just go okay you because you said so i believe you so guard works the same way on that then it's like documented exactly what i was thinking man document document document that's exactly it yeah because a lot of people you know they try to be the tough guy i'm in the military you know i'm you know i'm stronger than that and it's like yeah but our bodies deteriorate over time they're not as strong you know over time our bodies get less and less strong so at some point you do need assistance because of some issue that happened but when you were young you were like i'm strong enough i'm tough enough but it's like yeah but you're not always gonna be strong and tough enough so what happens when those issues start to you know affect your life and you didn't want to document when you were there and and and those are one of those benefits that we have in the military not all professions have those benefits so i always encourage people don't be that tough guy just you know think of your future self you'll probably think thank you yourself in the future and take advantage of it 40 50 year old you is going to hate 20 year old you you didn't take your ailments seriously yeah just you know take advantage of it the fact that we even have a va and can claim things so there you go so active duty allows you to retire after 20 years of service how does that work with the guard if you're working part-time can you just do part-time for 20 years and then be like all right cool i'm going to get my pension now how does that work so it's good good question and and a popular one so with the guard or reserve you don't get your retirement check after 20 years let's say you do 20 years you get your check at approximately age 60 i want to say it's like age 57 they change it from from every couple of years but so it'd be close to you know your retirement age the designated retirement age is how that works now there have been some changes since 2018 with the blended retirement system where they've enhanced our our tsps our thrift savings plan which is like a like a 401k benefit right it's like a matching so i always try to explain to people because i you start to confuse people you're like oh this tsp thrift savings plan people like what is that and you're like it's a 401k for the military and they're like oh okay that makes sense there you go yeah exactly thank you for for clarifying that so we do have four percent matching now so that's pretty awesome that wasn't around when i first joined in 2002 so that's that's a benefit the younger generation will get um and you know something to think about man when you when you i know you like stats and stuff like that i do get retirement questions but most most people only you know don't make it to retirement just because life changes there's only 10 percent of airmen retire whether that's active duty guard or reserve yeah so 90 are are gonna get out before their retirement eligible from the air force overall we always joke after getting out i was like 90 of the people that you're at basic with say they're doing 20 years yeah and when you actually do the 20 years it's like the 10 that said they weren't going to do 20 years that actually did the 20 and the 90 that said they were are the 90 that get out yeah it's crazy because life changes you can't we don't know the future right you know like we all think we're going to live forever and everything but like just life changes but with that tsp that 401k matching they keep that regardless like whatever you contribute you keep that forever so that i think is phenomenal that's a more realistic retirement benefit that new enlistees get nowadays so so that's how that goes i mean you can also get an active duty style retirement you just need to do a cumulative of 20 years of full time okay so so with you for instance you said you 13 years active and you've done five in the guard so far so technically you have two more years until you hit your 20. but because you didn't or how many of those years are you going to have as active are all right now my cumulative active time is 17 years are you gonna stick it out until 20th active yeah yeah yeah i might i might as well and i'm having fun but yeah you what you're leading to is i would get the same style retirement as active duty does now what happens if you're the five years that you had as the guard were all just part time in the guard how would that work when you hit when you yeah so if if i didn't have uh let's just say i retired at 20 but five years of it was guard time you don't get your check until uh age 57 i want to say or close to 60. and how that breaks down is a point spread so without getting lost in the math here but you know because i'm you know i can barely do math in public but essentially if you were to think of every day as one point right so 20 years would be about 7 200 points because each year would be 365 points 3 600 every decade right so 7 200 points over 20 years so they just do a formula based on how many days you wore the uniform in the guard and then they break down like a percentage of your base pay and that's what it will pay out when you're close to age 60. okay so in order to get the that retirement check right after you retire like for the rest of your life that's only offered if it's 20 years of active duty so or or full time so because that was something i've always liked wondered is you know what if you do you know 29 years of of part time in the guard like do you get a paycheck once you like hang up your uniform and retire but in this case it it doesn't matter how many years of part time you have you're not going to get that paycheck immediately until that certain age mark it matters how much full time you had and you have to hit that 20-year full-time threshold and what i see most people do in the guard because you know they might majority of their time is going to be like guardsmen or you know part-time one weekend a month kind of thing right they'll usually the people who stay in for the long haul they'll be retiring at age 50 55 so they're getting close to getting that check anyway because it's so easy to sustain you know and they want to keep those benefits like tricare reserve select and and just why not you know they're having fun they're having a good time especially when you're getting older and you start having all those you know your joints start squeaking and you need a hip replacement you know that having tricare for the cheap is it's kind of nice and and of course like we alluded to prior building up your va claim too right so a lot of times they'll write it out until they're rarely close to retirement so the guys who do stick around they're usually going closer to 30 plus years uh so that'll be common so you'll see some of the older guys still wearing the uniform uh which which is common in the guard side but i know in active duty you turn a lot of heads you know yeah in a guard you'll see a lot of guys with with like gray gray hair yeah wearing a uniform and you're like what is going on my grandpa get promoted to sergeant you know yeah so a big question is health care while you're in but to roll that into we just talked about retirement and how the pay works what about health care if you retire because active duty if you do those 20 years you'll be covered with your health care after you retire but what about if you do guard for 20 years is there any health care benefit once you retire or is that one of the reasons like you said people just kind of stay in because they get that benefit because there's not much of a benefit if you do decide to retire healthcare wise yeah so in that sense from what i've seen it's going to be the same you're going to have the health insurance benefit and that's why people push to 20 even though they're not getting that check immediately yeah at the very least they're pushing the 20 even if they're not getting that check the day after right but it'll be for that the health care benefits you know access to dental things like that and of course there's the va benefit which you you and i are both familiar with but yeah there's a lot of uh healthcare benefits that make staying till 20 worthwhile even if you're not getting that check till you're close to 60. okay okay yeah that was that was a big questions people wanted to know like you know is there that benefit of i get out like am i gonna be taken care of with my health care versus um you know like some companies you can work for your whole life for and as soon as you leave they're like oh no more benefits for you so that's the benefit of working that part time is if you have one of those jobs it may not offer health care after after you retire with them but but if you do the guard the whole time you're in that career and you just work out one weekend a month part-time if you you retire from the guard and your career at the same time you can kind of pull some of those health benefits from that 20 years in the guard yeah you still get you still get that same blue id card uh if you're familiar with it but uh the retirement id card and of course you'll have access to the facilities on base and everything like that so that's a good retirement uh aspect of it i think for for you kyle man you gotta get mckenna to get you uh you get one of those cards too when she retires that's what uh we always talk about i was like oh it wasn't for me but if she likes it which i think like our personalities are totally different i think she's gonna have a great time in the military we've discussed like her going guard possibly after she's always wanted to do active duty so it's like all right let's just do it and then she's like i think she's going to benefit a lot from it and like it so you know going guard and then her pulling at 20 might be you know like one of our possibilities and then like you've said uh multiple times it's really flexible in our other interview that we did with you uh you know with like how you pick and choose how you serve your time or if you've got life events going on you know the guard's a little more flexible with you and so that's definitely like what we're kind of considering because we want to start a family at some point or like man starting a family in health care like starting a family and paying for health care those things don't really mix too well you know it's like the more yeah the more kids you have the more expensive you got to pay for all the health stuff so we're like how do we set ourselves up with health care because that's a major cost in life and you know the military is a good way to kind of compensate for that so especially you know she wanted to do to do 20 years she could still because she's going at 27 when she'll go to basic so she could technically retire at 47. she's young and it's like that's still and she even feels like oh i'm getting started late and you're like getting started late you do 20 years if she likes it she just sticks out with a guard one weekend a month for for you know she does her six years or four years active duty and 16 in the guard 16 years of one weekend a month like really isn't that much of a commitment and so like compared to like 20 years of active duty right right you know and so it's like and i still get the benefits so it's it's always an option for us um to keep in mind but yeah it's definitely it's like a good backup plan almost like the guard is it's always there for you yeah exactly it's like i'm still in yeah still in it still in it you know are there any other questions you being a recruiter that people bring to you about benefits uh we're going to talk about the education benefits in another video because we get so many questions about college and tuition and going to school while you're serving so i want to hit all of those in one video because that's a major topic for people but other than that like pretty much for um vacation we didn't really talk about vacation time but if you're part-time uh that's not really a big factor but uh pay wise and healthcare retirement are there any other benefits that you get asked being a recruiter that you can think of off the top of your head that you would want to share or elaborate on well not so much a question but i think just you know i this year in 2020 2021 like has has really i think emphasized why it's a good idea to go guard or stay guard because when crisis hits in the economy and recessions happen every decade so this is going to repeat itself in some form 10 years from now you know having the the guard as a backup is is huge like it's such a great safety net like you know whether that's keeping your income going you know which means if you're having a family food on the table right or you know having health care benefits you know it's just keeping everything going and i used to mention this a lot when i was recruiting but now i think this year has has really proved it right because you know 10 percent of our economy and a lot of has has been unemployed right because of of what's happening and a lot of our guardsmen were able to you know even if they lost their full-time job were able to go on full-time status with the air guard you know maybe even make more and so they were able to sustain their lifestyle you know and not be hurt by crisis so i think that's the biggest thing it's like protecting you know your your your your financial status your family right all of that and just your livelihood yeah you said it well livelihood right there so that i think is profound and that's i'm really proud to be a member of the guard because of that and to see that at this time it's taking care of its own people making sure that they're not abandoned or stranded yeah while taking care of others right it's like we're trying to help our communities at the same time we also have our own safety net so that's that's huge in time of instability one last thing if people are interested in this video maybe convince them to be like man i gotta join the air national guard especially in california how can they contact you or or contact maybe their local recruiter to get more information about the international guard you can go ahead and drop all that info yeah so so if you're interested in joining the california air guard i'll give my work cell 805-415-7269 again 805-415-7269 feel free to start with a text or you can call me directly but if you're if you're not in california feel free to just look up your state uh whatever state that might be so florida air national guard you can google it and meet your you know get contact information for your local recruiter or check out goang.com that's goang.com for more information [Music] you

Channel: Airman Vision

Views: 4,125

Rating: 4.9245281 out of 5

Keywords: air force, us air force, airforce, joining the airforce, military, usaf, air national guard, air guard, ang, joining the air national guard, join the air national guard, air national guard recruiter, air guard recruiter, california air guard, california air national guard, air force national guard, usaf guard, air guard pay, air guard benefits, air national guard pay, air national guard benefits, benefits of the air national guard, pay in the air national guard

Id: 1-J_28nPtv8

Length: 35min 28sec (2128 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 26 2021