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The next major change came with the Military Pay Act of 1958. This established the pay grades of E-8 and E-9 but without corresponding rank titles. The titles of senior master sergeant and chief master sergeant were chosen between July and December 1958 after comments were solicited from the major Air Force commands of the day.
Pay grades [1] are used by the eight structurally organized uniformed services of the United States [2] (Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, Coast Guard, Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, and NOAA Commissioned Officer Corps), as well as the Maritime Service, to determine wages and benefits based on the corresponding military rank of a member of the services.
Pay will be largely based on rank, which goes from E-1 to E-9 for enlisted members, O-1 to O-10 for commissioned officers and W-1 to W-5 for warrant officers. Commissioned and warrant officers will be paid more than their enlisted counterparts. Early pay grade promotions are quite frequent, but promotions past E-4 will be less frequent.
Senior master sergeant (abbreviated SMSgt) is the second-highest enlisted rank (pay grade E-8) in the United States Air Force and United States Space Force, just above master sergeant and below chief master sergeant, and is a senior non-commissioned officer (SNCO). According to Air Force Instruction 36-2618, The Enlisted Force Structure:
The pay scale was originally created with the purpose of keeping federal salaries in line with equivalent private sector jobs. Although never the intent, the GS pay scale does a good job of ensuring equal pay for equal work by reducing pay gaps between men, women, and minorities, in accordance with another, separate law, the Equal Pay Act of 1963.
The Royal Thai Air Force uses the RAF ranks also. The Royal Canadian Air Force and Royal Malaysian Air Force also previously used the system. The U.S. military usually uses O-1 to O-10 to denote officers, and not the NATO codes of OF-1 to OF-10 in which all subaltern officers are classed as OF-1 (O-1 and O-2 in US).
[1] - US DoD, The United States Military Rank Insignia All Warrant Officer grades are authorized, but not used by the Air Force [2] - Office of the Law Revision Counsel. "U.S. Code TITLE 42-THE PUBLIC HEALTH AND WELFARE, section 207(a)-Grades, ranks, and titles of commissioned corps (2006)" (PDF).
The main difference is in the commissioned officer ranks, where the US system recognizes two grades at OF-1 level (O-1 and O-2), meaning that all O-x numbers after O-1 are one point higher on the US scale than they are on the NATO scale (e.g. a major is OF-3 on the NATO scale and O-4 on the US scale).