With inflation topping 8% this year for the first time since 1981, Pennsylvania officials are mulling what to do about state and public school retirees' demands for the first pension cost-of-living adjustments (COLA) since 2004.
In the state Senate, two Democrats, Katie Muth and John Kane, who represent districts in Philadelphia's western suburbs, said Monday that they planned to introduce legislation providing a cost-of-living adjustment for beneficiaries of both the Pennsylvania Public School Employees Retirement System (PSERS) and the Pennsylvania State Employees Retirement System (SERS).
"Inflation is very harmful to fixed incomes," and with prices so much higher in an election year this year, "the chance of passing a COLA really should be better" than at any time since the last increase was passed 20 years ago, the Pennsylvania Association of School Retirees told members in a recent note praising the senators' proposal.
