hi and welcome to the veterans legal Lowdown my name is Brandon paiva and I'm an accredited
claims agent here at Chisholm Chisholm in Kilpatrick and today we'll be reviewing the
VA disability pay rates for the upcoming year based on the 2023 cost of living adjustment
of 8.7 cost of living adjustment otherwise known as Cola or the acronym c-o-l-a is a rate
determined each year by the Social Security Administration Congress instructs a VA to
adjust monthly compensation amounts based on this yearly change in the cost of living
these changes allow for VA benefit amounts to increase along with the rate of inflation the
Social Security Administration bases the cost of living adjustment rates on the percentage
increase in the Consumer Price Index for urban wage earnings in clerical workers from the third
quarter July August and September of the previous year to the third quarter of the current year
now CPI which is the Consumer Price Index is a statistical measure of the change in
prices of goods and services over time they usually use eight major expenditure groups now
these eight major expenditure groups include things like food and beverage housing apparel
Transportation Medical Care Recreation education communication and other goods and services
the Bureau of Labor Statistics calculates the CPI on a monthly basis and then Social Security
compares the data to accurately reflect the change in the cost of living in their compensation rates
when VA uses the cost of living adjustment they basically obtain that from the Social
Security Administration and then that's what they use to adjust veterans monthly
disability compensation amounts so it comes directly from that cost of building address
from Social Security so you might be wondering kind of like I opened the video with what is
the 2023 cost of living adjustment rate what is that new rate going to be this year the cost of
living adjustment is going to be 8.7 percent now it seems like it's a small number but this
is actually the largest increase that we've seen in cost of living in over 40 years this
is a substantial Boost from last year's 5.9 percent increase so on December 1st VA will
adjust veterans monthly compensation benefits to reflect the updated cost of living veterans
can expect to collect their newly adjusted benefits starting on December 31st of 2022.
so on December 1st VA is going to start adjusting those monthly compensation rates and Veterans will
expect to see that adjustment in their monthly compensation as soon as December 31st of 2022.
now the 2023 compensation rates for disabled veterans are going to vary obviously with the
cost of living adjustment going up by 8.7 percent one can expect that monthly compensation will also
increase like I explained as well so we're sort of going to quantify that a little bit for you here
essentially when VA applies that 2023 cost of living adjustment to these disability benefits
veterans because it's going to be an 8.7 increase they're going to see a significant increase
reflected in their monthly compensation the 2022 compensation rates can be used as a baseline in
order to calculate the VA disability payments that you can expect to receive with this new
cost of living adjustment in 2023 so in order to do so we're going to take the 2023 cost of living
adjustment of 8.7 percent and then we're going to multiply that by the 2022 compensation rate
then that number you're going to get you're going to add that number to your current 2022
monthly compensation rate and then that final figure is going to be your new expected 2023 VA
compensation rate so let's quantify this a little bit more and start using some numbers that are
going to be a little bit more digestible than just talking about the math involved so for the
sake of the argument for the sake of providing Some solid numbers we're going to talk about
veterans who have a 100 percent disability rating but they don't have any dependents
so with the 8.7 percent increase veterans who do have 100 disability rating and do not have
any dependents may receive an extra 289 and 90 cents in their compensation amounts which means
your new 100 disability rate or your compensation rate that you're going to expect payment is going
to be three thousand six hundred and twenty one dollars in 95 cents it's going to be per month
so that's how much a new a veteran who has 100 compensation could expect in starting in 2023
that 3 600 amount veterans with a 70 combined rating will receive 1 663 dollars in 10 cents
which translates to 133 dollars and 11 cents more than they may be receiving right now a veteran
with the 50 rating will receive one thousand and forty one dollars and 82 cents come after
this cost of living adjustment that is going to be an increase of 83.38 veterans with a 30 combined
rating will receive now 508 dollars in five cents per month which is an increase in 40.66 per month
and finally veterans with the 10 rating will receive after the cost of living adjustment
that is 165 dollars in 92 cents which means that there is going to be an increase of 13.28
per month so that's what you can expect kind of moving forward once VA implements the cost
of living adjustment in your monthly disability payments which is going to be happening very soon
now as you know veterans with dependents may have you know may qualify for additional disability
payments for each dependent in order to qualify for those disability payments essentially you can
get a certain amount of money per dependent that you have but the requirements that you have to
be at least at 30 percent combined or more in order to start drawing uh dependency benefits
as well now these qualifying benefits or these qualifying dependents rather include a spouse
dependent parents a child under the age of 18 or a child that is between the ages of 18 and 23 and
enrolled in school so that's a little bit about what you might expect in your upcoming disability
payments in the next few months hopefully this video was able to provide you with some added
information and kind of let you know where the cost of living adjustment is coming from how
much you can expect and also give you those rates so if you wanted to you can feel free to go ahead
some of that math on your own but as always thank you very much for watching veterans
legal Lowdown more information on the 2023 cost of living adjustment and VA disability
rates for the upcoming year can be found on our cck blog and our website don't forget to keep up
by subscribing to our Channel and following us on social media thank you for joining me today
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