death gratuity

When Congress first approved the one-time death gratuity in 1908, it was six months' pay, only a few hundred dollars.

The death gratuity is separate from the $250,000 in low-cost life insurance that the government makes available to military personnel.

The military death gratuity, the Defense Department calls it.

Death gratuity for military, increase permanently (119 Stat.

As the war in Iraq grinds on, a dozen or so death gratuity checks are handed out across the country in a typical week.

Nonetheless, the United States military declared them dead, paid their wives or families a death gratuity of about $4,000 and tried to forget about them.

The Department of Defense offers widows a range of benefits, including retirement security money, health care, life insurance payouts and a $100,000 death gratuity.

The Congressional death gratuity was initially intended decades ago as a form of life insurance for families of Members of Congress.

The explanation of life insurance and other benefits, for example, and the presentation of a "death gratuity": $6,000 for the grieving family to use in any way it chooses.

But much public attention has focused on the "death gratuity" - Dr. Chu said he hoped the military would find a better name - which was more than doubled last year and made tax-free.

With the military death toll mounting in Iraq, Congressional leaders are sheepishly conceding the need to raise the current $12,400 paid as a "death gratuity" - cash to cover immediate expenses - to the spouses and children of men and women killed in the course of service.

The article went on to assert that there has been "a string of actions by the Bush administration to cut or hold down growth in pay and benefits, including basic pay, combat pay, health-care benefits and the death gratuity paid to survivors of troops who die on active duty."

The renewed attention to the death gratuity represents another effort by lawmakers to improve conditions for the families of those who serve in the military, a matter that has been the subject of some political dispute because Democrats have accused the Bush administration of shortchanging the troops even as it asks more of them.

Eliminating the payment of death gratuities for deceased Members of Congress (H.R.3127) Oct 14, 2011 - Congressman Posey introduced legislation to eliminate a generous death benefit set aside for the family of Members of Congress who pass away during the term of their service.

United States military officers wrote them off as dead and paid their widows and families a small death gratuity, despite a 1970 study commissioned by the Joint Chiefs of Staff concluding that most of the commandos deployed by the United States were captured alive and taken as prisoners of war.