Veterans of the United States will soon hear good news. Since inflation has been going up and the economy has been unstable over the past few years, the money they were getting did not cover their costs. The Senate passed a new bill called the Veterans’ Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act of 2024 because of this.
There was no disagreement when this bill was passed. It will soon be sent to President Joe Biden to be put into law. If everything goes as planned, starting in December, millions of veterans will likely get more benefits.
These will include more money for combat-related injuries, more help with money for their families, and more clothes for disabled veterans. As part of the bill, dependent and indemnity payments to soldiers’ families, such as surviving spouses and children, will be raised.
The benefits will go up by the same amount as Social Security benefits, which is based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI), more specifically the CPI-W for urban wage earners and clerical workers. This will make things easier. The number for next year’s raise was released on October 10. The 2.5% increase that was released did not come as a surprise, as it had been analyzed by several experts.
After the bill was passed, several senators spoke out about how important the raise was for veterans and their families. Jon Tester, chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, said in a statement, “At a time when people are struggling with rising costs, from housing to groceries, veterans deserve to know for sure that they can support their families.”
Jerry Moran, the ranking member of the committee, also said this about the bill: “We have a duty to care for and support our nation’s veterans and their families.” Veterans and their families will feel a lot better if they know that their earned benefits will keep up with rising prices. Thank you to my colleagues for their support on this important bill. I look forward to the President signing it into law.
The experts that predicted the Social Security and now Veteran benefits increase
The final amount of the benefit increase has been released and is now set in stone. However, it is important to remember that not everyone agreed on the amount. Of all the experts, the most cautious ones were the ones who got the early numbers right and filled in the blanks to come up with the 2.5 percent increase.
Independent Social Security and Medicare policy analyst Mary Johnson was one of the first people to correctly predict what would happen. In a statement to Newsweek, she said, “The 2025 COLA will be the lowest received by Social Security beneficiaries since 2021.
At the same time, prices remain high on key necessities such as housing, meat, auto insurance, and any type of service and repairs.” A 2.5 percent COLA is about normal, even though it is the lowest it has been since 2021.
However, before the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the final numbers, some pessimists, such as PlanPrep’s Burt Williamson, were hoping that the Social Security Administration would raise benefits more than expected to help seniors’ budgets deal with the effects of inflation. “I think they will raise Social Security benefits by at least 3% this year.
The main thing keeping inflation low is the very unstable cost of energy.” When they think about how those costs will go up in the winter, it makes the cost of living for seniors go up too. Anything less than 3 percent will make most seniors unhappy, since they still have to deal with much higher prices for everything that went up in price over the last few years.
The 3% raise did not happen, which is a shame. However, the Veterans’ Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act of 2024 means that both retirees and veterans can now enjoy a benefit that is based on today’s prices.
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