Justin Florek

I have started a petition on change.org to get a law changed that applies to how all of our veteran's benefits are calculated. I signed up for this website to share this, and believe this is the correct forum for this. There is no money to be made from this petition by me, and it costs nothing to support it. The purpose is to try to bring awareness to this issue. I am hoping you will support and sign this if you agree. If you do not, please feel free to help me, help us. The VA’s annual compensation adjustment doesn’t account for the previous OR upcoming year, it is only inflation-correct on the first day of the new year. It doesn’t account for inflation from the second day of the year up to the last day of the year forward or backward. To be ACCURATE, it should ALSO be retroactively adjusting for inflation back to either the second day, or month of the year. It’s accurate on January 1st. It’s 364 days behind what inflation is on Dec 31st. The 8.7% inflation increase for 2023 is accurate, but it didn’t happen overnight after close of business on Dec 31st. It happened over the course of the previous year. For an 8.7% increase after a year; then after six months there would have been a (50% of the 8.7% or a) 4.35% increase. After nine months a (75% of 8.75%, or a) 6.525% increase, (8.7% / 12 months = 0.725% inflation rate per month). The annual increase is only accurate during the one day/month the increase happens (January (1st)). I believe this is a fair request to be reevaluated, because of what this is about. Unlike benefits from any job someone may get where a raise is based on time and experience, government compensation and retirement benefit’s amounts change because of ONLY ONE thing: inflation, / the cost of living. That is the ONLY factor in determining the COLA. If inflation were to somehow never happen for twenty years, then the benefit amounts would also not change for twenty years. COLA is not a raise; all it does is keep us from falling more than a year behind inflation. So when inflation does happen, and if the entire point of those set compensation amounts, is to provide a specific quality of life, based on a specific cost of living; then shouldn’t veterans be allowed to live at that level for the entire year, and not just one day or even one month? The second the cost of living goes up by one penny, we are no longer at the goal for that quality of life. The FAIR thing to do, and what I am asking for is to retroactively compensate for the actual increase that happened over the year, once the year ends. The EASY thing to do would be to calculate it as linear, (as a steady increase every month over the year), into a one time “retroactive COLA - ADJUSTMENT” payment that would be paid annually, after the new rate is calculated. Think of a right angle triangle. The bottom line is one year. The vertical line is the annual COLA. WHAT ABOUT THE THIRD LINE? The third line, the diagonal line is the ACTUAL INFLATION. To calculate this adjustment accurately, you just make a rectangle. You take one year (12 months) times the COLA adjustment (to get a rectangle), then you divide it by two to get back to the triangle. 12 x cola / 2, OR cola x 6. (The inflation rate adjusts more often than this, and this doesn't account for any accrued interest, but the MAIN REASON TO USE THIS METHOD is for the simplicity to calculate and understand for both sides). For a veteran with a 100% disability rating, that 8.7% increase MEANS that the ACTUAL COST OF LIVING that we JUST EXPERIENCED would be ($289.88 x 6 = )$1,793.28 MORE than what was projected for January 1st. For the same 50% rating if you multiply it times 11 months, that would be $458.59 to compensate them across the year. The increase from 2021 to 2022 was 5.9%. Which would have been $1,1113.84 for the same 100%. You could just as accurately backdate as many years as you wanted, by subtracting the first full year of benefit's received, from the current year's rate, and multiplying by 6. By creating an “annual retroactive COLA” payment, you will be accounting for the inflation that ACTUALLY HAPPENED, that you COULD NOT FORSEE and DID NOT ACCOUNT FOR on January 1st. My analogy is: If over the course of the year, I received a raise, yet when I paid my taxes, I said: I will pay my taxes for the rate I was at on January 1st. I will go ahead and adjust my taxes up to my new raise, starting with next year’s taxes since I wasn’t getting paid that on January 1st. – You wouldn’t be okay with that if you are receiving the money. Why are you okay with it when it’s your obligation to pay it out? The current method for calculating veteran’s benefits, will continue to be incomplete, until this is included. Thank you. - If you agree, please sign the petition to support it. Thank you. Petition · Veterans Affairs - Would you reevaluate your compensation to include UP TO the new year? · Change.org