The Senate Subcommittee on Personnel sets the total number of military personnel allowed each year.
Ranking Member, Senate Armed Services (SASC) Subcommittee on Personnel
Senator Elizabeth Warren, D, Massachusetts
Responsibilities
The Senate Subcommittee on Personnel sets the total number of military personnel allowed each year. Its legislative authority reaches across all branches and encompasses the roughly 1.32 million full-time, active-duty members, the roughly 2 million service members, and the nearly 790,000 civilians invested in the Armed Forces, according to the Department of Defense’s Defense Manpower Data Center and Pew Research Center survey, March 2025.
In working to safeguard the health, general morale and welfare of DoD servicemembers and civilian personnel, the nine-member subcommittee oversees DoD schools; child care and family assistance; personnel compensation and benefits; nominations; and POW/MIA issues. It’s tasked with military recreation, commissaries and exchanges, and with implementing the DoD’s Military Lending Act. It also oversees the Armed Forces Retirement Home.
Quote
“If military families can’t find child care, they just may not be able to serve,” said Warren, referencing the staffing shortfalls in child care services and its effect on the overall readiness of the forces.
Committees
Ranking Member of: Subcommittee on Personnel; and Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
Member of: Committee on Finance; Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support; Subcommittee on Strategic Forces; Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Protection. She is also on the following subcommittees: Digital Assets; Economic Policy; Housing, Transportation, and Community Development; National Security and International Trade and Finance; Health Care; Securities, Insurance, and Investment; International Trade, Customs, and Global Competitiveness; Aging; and the Subcommittee on Taxation and IRS Oversight.
Political/Professional/Academic Career
Elected to the US Senate in November 2012. Re-elected in 2018 and again in 2024.
Became a Democratic candidate for the presidential nomination in 2020 that former President Joe Biden won.
Held several economic advisory roles in government, and served on The Congressional Oversight Panel formed after the crash of major US financial institutions in 2008. Advocated for and helped to create the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2011. Appointed special adviser to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner by former President Barack Obama in 2010. A member of the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) Advisory Committee on Economic Inclusion from 2006 to 2010.
A practicing lawyer and law school professor for more than 30 years, specializing in commercial law, contracts, and bankruptcy.
Penned articles, papers and national best-selling books including This Fight Is Our Fight, A Fighting Chance, The Two-Income Trap, and All Your Worth.
Education
Graduated from Rutgers University with a J.D. in law in 1976.
Graduated from University of Houston with a B.S. degree in Speech Pathology in 1970.
Personal
Born Elizabeth Herring on June 22, 1949, to Donald and Pauline Herring, in Oklahoma City, OK. The youngest of four children, she grew up “on the ragged edge of the middle class,” as she puts it, her father having suffered a heart attack.
Graduating from high school at age 16, she went on to attend George Washington University on a debate scholarship. After two years, she married and moved to Texas, earning the first of her degrees.
Married to Bruce Mann for more than 41 years. They live in Cambridge, where they met while he was teaching at Harvard Law School. They have three grandchildren.
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