U.S. Military (Ret.): No COLA, but retirees can lobby for one-time payment - Military Retirement - Navy Times

U.S. Military (Ret.): No COLA, but retirees can lobby for one-time payment

Election Day 2010 came just a couple of weeks after military retirees got the discouraging news that they will see no cost-of-living adjustment for a second consecutive year in 2011 — the only two years without a COLA increase in the 35 years that the current system has been in use.

Of course, it’s hard to say how large a role the lack of a COLA played in any retiree’s voting choices. But I don’t think it’s a stretch to assume that many retirees were not feeling particularly happy about Washington when they stepped into their voting booths this year.

I guess it’s natural to want to pin the blame on someone. But we also need to remember that the COLA is a formula-driven mechanism based on objective analysis of common goods and services as tracked by the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.

BLS has no political agenda; it simply collects data. Few if any retirees quibble when the data prove beneficial, as they did in 2009 when a temporary spike in energy prices resulted in a fat COLA hike of 5.8 percent, the largest in many years.

The simple fact is that the data collected over the past two years show that prices on many types of goods and services have fallen amid the severe economic recession that is, in many ways, still being keenly felt by many Americans. Still, many retirees think the COLA formula doesn’t take all pertinent cost data into account. In particular, working-age military retirees who don’t use Tricare say their health care costs continue to rise.

And think about those who happened to retire in 2009, like Stephanie Aylward, who served four combat tours in Iraq. She recently told me that not only will she see no COLA increase in her first two years of retirement, she is also struggling to find work in this brutal job market despite her 20 years of experience and her college degree.

One small piece of potential good news for retirees is that legislation is again pending in the House that would give retirees a one-time $250 payment in lieu of a COLA increase next year. That’s about $21 a month — not much, but better than nothing.

House leaders have promised to bring that bill — HR 5987, sponsored by Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D. — up for debate in November. But even if the House approves it, the bill would still have to be passed by the Senate, which is no sure thing.

The plain truth is that these are tough times for many Americans. The best that we retirees can do is make our voices heard by our elected representatives on HR 5987 and on all issues that are important to our community.

Retired Command Master Chief Alex Keenan served 28 years in the Coast Guard. E-mail him at retired@atpco.com.