WASHINGTON, DC – The United States Senate today voted to restore full cost of living pension increases for military retirees, a measure which Senator Jack Reed supported.

Today’s vote reversed a planned one percent cut to the annual cost of living adjustment (COLA) increase for military retirees 62 years of age and younger, which was set to take effect in 2015 as part of the December budget agreement passed by Congress.

“We owe a debt of gratitude to the men and women of our Armed Forces who serve the nation with honor and distinction.  Today’s vote is about ensuring our veterans get the full benefits they earned.  I opposed these cuts from the get go because they broke a promise to our veterans, were not endorsed by the Armed Services Committee, and should never have been included in the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013,” said Reed, a cosponsor of the Military Retirement Restoration Act, which sought to safeguard military retirees from these cuts.  “Congress needs to work on a bipartisan basis to protect the retirement security of our veterans and all retirees.”

Reed added that Congress still needs to take action to help 1.8 million American jobseekers, including 20,000 veterans, who have already lost their emergency unemployment insurance (UI) benefits since they were cutoff 46 days ago.

“I’d like to point out the savings used to repeal this COLA reduction are the same savings we tried to use to fully pay for nearly a year of extended unemployment insurance.  That proposal was filibustered by all of my Republican colleagues.  At the time, many of them said they voted “no” because the savings we proposed weren’t real – that it was a gimmick.  Now, Republicans on both sides of the Capitol are embracing these savings and even using some of them to patch the “doc fix.”  So a few weeks ago these savings weren’t acceptable to provide relief to millions of jobseekers, but now all of a sudden they’ve changed their story and they agree these savings are real.  I hope they will similarly change their mind on the need to restore UI and help get more Americans back to work.”

The COLA restoration bill passed the House yesterday with overwhelming support and is now headed to the White House for President Obama’s signature.

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For more information about Sen. Reed's work on behalf of men and women in uniform, please see our Veterans page.