ISO a COLA? Pray for $5 per gallon of gas!

Odds are that federal, military and Social Security retirees will NOT be getting a cost of living adjustment in January.

Not even a teeny one. We’re talking yet another no-cal COLA.

That’s despite the fact that health insurance premiums for many under the FEHBP will jump next year.  New premiums for Long Term Care Health insurance (some up, some down) went into effect Aug. 1.

If zippo COLA  forecast holds true, it will be the second, year in  row that retirees didn’t get any inflation catch up because there was any (or enough) inflation to trigger a COLA.

The decrease in oil prices has been great for folks at the pump.  And it has boosted business at beach and mountain resorts.  Road traffic for the July 4th holiday was at record levels, and Labor Day promises to be the same way.  But the downside to low inflation is a no-cal COLA. That’s despite the fact that many things retirees must have (from medicine to good health insurance) keep going up.

In 2005, the retirees got a 4.1 percent COLA; 2006 it was 3.3 percent; 2007, 2.3 percent; 2008 it was 5.8 percent; there was no COLA in 2009 or 2010; in 2011 retirees got 3.6 percent; 2012 it was 1.7 percent; 2013 it was 1.5 percent and in 2014 the COLA was 1.7 percent.

CSRS employees get full COLAs when they retire. FERS retirees don’t get COLAs until they reach age 62. And they can be less than a full COLA.

Some members of Congress — and until recently the White House — want to make future COLAs even harder to come by.  They favor switching from the current system to the so-called chained CPI (for Consumer Price Index) to determine future COLAs.  If that happened — and it isn’t likely to happen — future raises for all inflation-indexed retirees would reduced slightly. So slightly that most people wouldn’t notice. Jessica Klement of the National Active and Retired Federal Employees estimates switching to the chained CPI formula would reduce the future lifetime benefits of CSRS retirees by $50,000 over a  25 year period.  In other words, you would still get COLAs.  But they would be smaller each year under the proposed change.  Here’s where we stood this time last year.

What Shape Is Your Boss In?

The last two years of any lame duck administration can be tough on career federal executives. Although they will survive the change in administrations the so-called final days present unique problems.

Today at 10 a.m. on our Your Turn radio show, we’ll talk with Carol Bonosaro. She’s president of the Senior Executives Association, which represents most of the 5,000 plus career SESers at the $121,956 to $183,300 pay range.

SEA wants to find out details of an alleged management hit-list compiled by union members at the Department of Veterans Affairs. It was first reported by The Washington Post.  At issue is whether there is such a list, and was it done by union members on official (paid) time.

Bonosaro is also concerned about a report based on an employee job survey last year by the Office of Personnel Management.   The report was analyzed by outside experts. They  concluded that managers and executives thought the government promotion and awards program is a lot better than rank-and-file workers see it. Bonosaro said she felt the analysis was “flawed”.  She said some SES members may have felt pressured to give overly glowing reviews to their program.

Nearly Useless Factoid

By Michael O’Connell

Major League Baseball umpires must have 20/20 with or without contact lenses or glasses.

Source: Houston Chronicle

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