Less spendable income means drop in COLA

[unhappycamper]

Less spendable income means drop in COLA
By Geoff Ziezulewicz, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Military members will see a decrease in their cost-of-living allowance for this fiscal year because of new federal statistics on spending habits.

Data recently released by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Statistics show that Americans are spending more money on housing and utilities, meaning they have less spendable income, according to Steve Bridges, director of finance operations with the Army’s 266th Finance Command in Germany.

As a result of this drop in spendable income, troops living overseas will see a slight decrease in their COLA.

“They’re talking a dollar a day for most people,” Bridges said. “It’s a minor impact.”

“If you have more spendable income, you need more COLA to make your purchasing power comparable to what it would be if you lived in ,” Bridges wrote in an e-mail to Stars and Stripes. “Less spendable income equates to less purchasing power so there would be a reduced need for COLA to maintain the new level of purchasing power.”

Rest of article at: http://stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=49391



uhc comment: If I understand this correctly, the USD is down 40% and we are cutting COLA? Are these fucks trying to squeeze every dollar out of everybody before the empire collapses?

[papau]

1. The math "works" only if you assume a 100% on base life - there is no overseas adjustment it seems.

n/t