Rounding?

[Ronc531]

can someone tell me how the VA rounds percentages? if i have a 61% which way does it go? my wife said she read that they always round up, is that correct?

[ShrekTheTank]

Ronc531 The VA does funny math.  So with you case you would need to be at 64.45 to round up to 65.  Anything under this will keep you at the 60%.  Use the VA calculator on this site and it does an awesome job of calculating everything correctly.  

[brokensoldier244th]

It's not funny. Over halfway to a number it goes up. Less than halfway to a number it goes down. Pretty standard rounding.

[broncovet]

The VA has "rounded down" its calculations for compensation pay rates for decades.  

Example:

    Lets say you have a 100 percent disability, and for simplicity, its paid at 1000 per month.  You get a 3.8 percent pay raise.  Thats a 38 dollar raise, exactly 3.8 percent.  

But, lets say you are 10 percent disability  and get 100 per month, again, for simplicity.  100 times 3.8 percent, ROUNDED DOWN TO THE NEAREST DOLLAR is a $3.00 raise, or just 3 percent.  So, 100 percent gets 3.8 percent raise, but 10 percent gets just 3% because the numbers always rounded down to the lower whole dollar.  

     By repeating this over decades, you have an unfairness built in to all those who are less than 100 percent.  

      Here is how the chart really is, vs how it should be if everyone got the same raise:

100 percent (single Vet)     3057                      should be 3057

90    Percent (single vet)   1832 per month     should be 2751.30

  (3057 times 90 percent is equal to $2751.30).  So 90 percent Vets are hornswaggled out of the difference (2751.30 minus 1832) or 919 per month.  That is almost 1000 per month that all 90 percent Vets have been hornswaggled out of by "rounding down to the whole dollar" compounded for decades.  

Yea, Im a math nerd.  

[ShrekTheTank]

1 hour ago, brokensoldier244th said:

It's not funny. Over halfway to a number it goes up. Less than halfway to a number it goes down. Pretty standard rounding.

No the way they subtract percentages to get to the final percentage.  The rounding is dead on. 

[Ronc531]

Thanks everyone for the explanations, my wife must have read something wrong. Not like her she is always right

[GeekySquid]

On 5/9/2019 at 6:40 AM, broncovet said:

Here is how the chart really is, vs how it should be if everyone got the same raise:

100 percent (single Vet)     3057                      should be 3057

90    Percent (single vet)   1832 per month     should be 2751.30

@broncovet

You are misconstruing how and what the numbers refer to and what they are based on.

yes 90% of $3057 is $2751.30, but 90% on the rating table is NOT about a 90% rating (or any rating) having a direct, 1 to 1, correlation to the maximum dollar amount of a 100% rating.

Using your thinking of how

On 5/9/2019 at 6:40 AM, broncovet said:

 all 90 percent Vets have been hornswaggled out of by "rounding down to the whole dollar" compounded for decades.

then a rating of 10% for a single veteran would equate to $ 305.71 per month.

The same misapplication would change ALL monthly payment amounts except 0 and 100 percent ratings.

As a third part, the annual raise does NOT change the % Rated, just the Dollar amount allowed by Law due to the COLA. We all get the same percent of our statutory allowed amount when a COLA is received, minus the statutory rounding down based on fractional pennies below the half cent. They round up at the half cent or higher calculation.

Facts and Application:

Congress has created 3 distinct things, one is the statutory outcome of the other. The third, COLA, only affects the outcome of the 2 thing.

The first is the rating table that describes the loss of work income based on an average person who has not suffered the same loss as the veteran due to SC created harm. This loss is expressed as a percentage of the expected  average income of an average person who is not harmed by military service.

The second item is a statutory dollar amount that each percentage is worth due to the harm caused to the veteran.

That does not, and cannot track as you expressed it.

We can agree that a 90% SC rated veteran deserves a higher dollar amount; what we cannot do is misapply the relationship between the first two items established by Congress and claim vets are being hornswaggled based on that misapplication.

Further we cannot imply that a COLA has anything to do with the actual Rating Table. It only applies to the assigned dollar amount that Congress has authorized and it rounds up or down in accordance with standard U.S. GAAP practices.

Put another way, to figure out the monthly monetary compensation due an SC veteran, identify the percent of rating in Table 1, then use that percent value with Table 2 to locate the statutory dollar value allowed by Law. Apply any COLA to the statutory value derived in Table 2. Round pennies in accordance with GAAP.

 

Edited May 11, 2019 by GeekySquid