hey thanks for making it to Veterans infot tap I'm glad you made it there's a new piece of legislation that's been floating around that could dramatically increase our social security and veterans benefits like your disability compensation or dependency andity compensation and others it's really important that we pay attention to this stuff because you know quiet mouths don't get fed right so we need to be a group that's a little bit louder and I'm not saying act crazy cuz that's weird what I'm saying is is send an email to your uh Congressional member make a phone call leave a message even if it's after hours right these things tally up and um and make it to where we're a little more I guess heard when it comes to this stuff now I've been talking about Cola for a while and um I'm talking about it more now because we are 2third of the way through uh the numbers that actually are going to calculate this year's cost of living adjustment our pay increase effectively before I jump in too far I want to throw in a special thanks to Rick bu 6060 thank you so much for the uh super thanks in the comments I really appreciate it really does help the channel you know every bit every bit helps and I appreciate your support thank you so very much all right so let's uh let's jump into this real quick I did a video this morning on Cola different options different ways that maybe we could realize a better Cola and the fact that the VA has actually done colas internally for different programs like chapter 35 and vr& that last year were 6.2% so that would be great what if uh the VA actually had the authority to give out a higher uh payment to Veterans what if let's make it easy VA signed uh you know on this piece of legislation you mirr the uh Social Security administration's Cola Plus I don't know 2 and a half% right so if 2 and a half% becomes Cola well then 5% becomes the cola for veterans that would be sweet uh so anyway let's jump into it here I am going to share this article with you it just came out uh not too long ago as an update uh updated version and uh prior to that it came out April 24th of 2024 with the updated version uh July 12th and I want to share it with you here today please hit the thumbs up subscribe share with a friend all that good stuff I truly appreciate it and uh if you want to support the channel in other ways consider being a member you can do that by going to the homepage you'll see the highlighted members and a join button thank you to all you members I appreciate you so very much all right so it's hard to talk that much and not breathe all right so the headline is social security benefits and anytime you hear Social Security insert veterans benefits like disability compensation dependency indemnity compensation that type of stuff because those are affected by Cola which by law um is mirrored from Social Security's adjustment so anytime you hear Social Security with regard to Cola uh just insert veteran stuff so the headline Social Security benefits could be dramatically changed under new bill and moving into it here a newly proposed Bill introduced by Arizona representative Ruben GGO uh could change how the yearly cost of living adjustment to Social Security benefits is calculated potentially boosting checks for retirees and other recipients the proposed legislation called the boosting benefits and colas Act is an attempt to amend title two of the Social Security Act to require the commissioner of the Social Security of Social Security to use the Consumer Price act price index for elderly the CPI now remember currently we utilize the CPI W they're calling to switch it to the CPI E from my understanding and I don't know if they're going to say it in this my understanding is over a 20year period we as recipients of cola adjustments right increases to your benefits pay would have averaged down about a quarter perent higher quarter percent by itself doesn't sound like much but take a quarter and then another and another and another and another it's kind of like compound interest it's actually it's going to build upon itself which is you know it's the snowball rolling down the hill thing all right moving on uh so utilize the CPI to calculate the yearly cost of living adjustment better known as Cola instead of the Consumer Price Index for urban wage earners and clerical workers should the CPI W be higher than the CPE the first should be used instead of the latter okay nice so basically it's a it's an either or thing it sounds like so you utilize the CPI e but if the CPI W is higher uh then you would utilize that at least according to this it's a weird way to say it should the CPI W be higher than the CPI e the first should be used instead of the ladder while the first was CPI W so then that's it so sweet so that's a safety net so now you know that you can only be higher than what you currently would be receiving under CPI W but primarily the CPE has uh shown to be a a higher indic as far as adjustments would be concerned moving on through the article the annual Cola is currently based let me stop here real quick if you agree with this which obviously already makes sense it's better than it already uh already is so I mean there you go remember that it is called the boosting benefits and cola's act boost boosting benefits in cola's act reach out to your legislator whether there's time to make anything happen now uh probably not but throw it out there let them know that you're paying attention to what's going on and if it's not this cycle next cycle get on board with something like this the boosting benefits in cola's act all right jumping back into the article the annual Cola is currently based on the percentage increase in the CPI W between the third quarter of the previous year in the third quarter of the current year they're talking about calendar year sometimes you're going to hear fiscal year it's basically July August September if there's no increase there's no Cola the idea is to adjust Social Security benefits so they can keep Pace with inflation in 2024 the cola was 3.2 a much smaller boost than the previous year when the adjustment had been 8.7% but GGO argues that this formula doesn't consider the specific costs that retirees have to face which by the way is something that the senior citizens league has been pushing for I don't even know decades um so you know this isn't a new thing but it's one of those things where you go hey that's a really smart idea representative wow you're really on it great job happy that you figured that out now let's act right so uh it's basically calling out that uh the the current Formula doesn't uh take into consideration the specific cost that uh elderly or retirees or disabled folks uh have to face which are different from the rest of American population for example medical expenses weigh more heavily on elderly than young people a number which is reflected in the CPE but not necessarily the CPI W moving on Rising costs mean now so he's from Arizona so he's going to mention Arizona of course so but it's would be a national thing Rising costs mean Arizona seniors on Social Security see the real value of their benefits decrease ask anybody who's been on social security for more than a decade and they can tell you that too goleo said in a written statement last week after introducing the legislation my new bill puts more dollars in the pockets of Social Security recipients to pay their bills get their medications and pay for housing it's only right Arizona's seniors earned their social security benefits uh Newsweek contacted glo's office for comment by email on Wednesday morning according to uh Roman Olman president of [Music] afcme I don't know Arizona's retirees chapter 97 oh okay there you go the current way to calculate the annual Cola does not account for the inflation seniors see in health care costs he said in a written statement it's important that the cola reflects how inflation impacts seniors so that we can pay our bills and our monthly Social Security checks stay strong wrong uh companion bill to goo's boosting benefits and cola Act was introduced in the senate in March by Senator Bob Casey or Cassie I'm not sure of Pennsylvania uh if passed the proposed legislation would apply to uh determinations made with respect to the cost of living computations uh quarters ending on or after September 30th 2024 so it's for next year so that's pretty pretty sweet right so this is um another there's been multiple there has been multiple this is not a new idea um I think that for some pieces of legislation what happens is they they incorporate the CPI aspect in addition to a bunch of other changes to Social Security and sometimes that stalls stalls the bill because there's too many things that going on that everybody doesn't agree with so when you reel it back and you find one thing that everybody can agree on uh maybe there's a better chance of making that happen uh so with that my my thought here is look if you agree regardless regardless if this bill goes anywhere or not it's important that you reach out to your legislator let them know that you support legislation like this and you want them to too as well now on the flip side look should the question really comes down now to should veterans have a different cost of living adjustment um or the VA calculate it themselves uh is that a harder is that a harder sell or is it uh easier I'm a fan for anything that's going to increase Cola our cost of living adjustment to our benefits increasing the amount of money that we receive um because I again I believe that inflation is doing this and all of our adjustments are like this sure they're both going up but the Gap gets bigger the further along you go so with that thanks so much I appreciate you have a great one and remember if we don't take care of each other something went wrong