tdiu Historical Rates Of Va Compensation

[john999]

In 1974 a single vet with 100% SC received $584 a month. A vet with 10% got 32 bucks a month and one with 90% got $325 a month. All the increases since then and before then are due to the COLA. When people who are uniformed start saying a new Chained CPI won't hurt us vets they are crazy.

The current COLA underestimates the true cost of living. I got 10% in 1971 and it was $28 bucks a month. My father got 10% in 1946 and it was $8 a month I think. We really need a raise to the basic rate and a better COLA. I am able to get by pretty well because I get a decent amount of SSD and TDIU+HB. A 22 year old soldier who has only worked for a few years will just get the little SSD and his 100% if he is totally disabled.

John

[rpowell01]

Chained CPI is the worse thing ever and if it is implemented we all will pay big time....Mr. Obama needs to find another job because he is handing out billions to other countries but is taking away from is so called own countrymen. Sorry just my honest opinion. I don't vote because of a party and what party a person is in, I vote for the man/woman and what they have on the table. Obama was, IMO, the worst of all of them. I voted for that guy at the bottom of the ballot, the unknown person.

[john999]

From what I have read SSA is not in trouble. We don't need to change the CPI or COLA to keep SSA going. The government uses the SSA COLA for all the other government programs. That means us vets will get cut if SSA COLA gets cut. What is driving the government into a hole is medical inflation which is passed onto medicare/medicade and all other medical insurance.

[Tbird]

http://www.hadit.com/vaclaimslibrary/compensation/comprateshistorical.htm

[relpats]

^{Actually, the government keeps giving big business and corporations tax breaks while they let them take all the jobs overseas. That prevents Americans from working and employers from matching the employee paid in amount. The government's answer is to cut SSA. They've already changed the age requirement for full benefits. My dad appled at 62 years old and died of a massive heart attack at 64. Had he waited until 65 to apply he would have never drawn a penny. So everyone does not get to draw all they paid in.}

^{We just came out of the period where the government had lowered the presentage we paid in to SSA so Quote" workers would have more take home pay" Unquote during the economic downturn. That hurt the SSA program even worse. If our taxes had been lowered we would have had more take home pay... Now the "Sequesture". If that's going to reduce gov't spending then don't cut people programs like SSA. I was brought up to respect my elders and help them; a lesson our politicians must have missed!}

Edited April 23, 2013 by relpats

[GuaymasJim]

A couple of years ago I did an accounting of my disability compensation--VA/SSDI. After adjusting for inflation, I am taking home $11 a month more than the day I left the Corps as a 1st. LT almost 40 years ago. The bright spot is that I pay no taxes on this income. Around the same time, Mellisa Harris-Perry, an MSNBC contributor and Professor at Tulane University, gave a discourse on "The Accumulation of Wealth." Her main thesis was that some segments of our society do not have the opportunity to earn enough to generate any wealth to pass on to the next generation. I was mesmerized by her words because it seemed like she was talking directly to me although I am not in one of the segments she mentioned. My income accounting was inspired by the realization that the money was frequently running out before the month ended. I want to leave my little guy something to start out on when he reaches that age and I am gone.

With the current state of political affairs in this nation, nothing is going to happen to address the "reduced quality of life" that disabled veterans experience. We have heard a lot of BS (Dole/Shalala Commission) about this over the years, but nothing ever develops. I suspect that it will never come to fruition; and the newer vets will really suffer under a COLA based on the Chained CPI! Just sort of sucks doesn't it?

If you want to read MHP's analysis it is here. Just substitute "disabled veterans" for any/all of the population segments she mentions.

http://thecashroc.blogspot.mx/2011/07/according-to-new-study-out-today-by-pew.html

[john999]

I bet a PFC today makes more than you did as a 1st LT 40 years ago. I believe that as a PFC in Vietnam, including combat pay, I was making about $250 a month. Of course, there was no place to spend the money, so I shipped most of it home.