Cost-Of-Living Adjustments Proposed For Retired PA Teachers, Employees

HARRISBURG — Retired Pennsylvania school teachers and other public sector employees stand to get their first cost-of-living adjustment pay in more than two decades if legislation proposed by two state senators is signed into law.

State Sen. Katie Muth, a Democrat representing parts of Montgomery, Chester and Berks Counties, and State Sen. John Kane, a Democrat whose district includes parts of Delaware and Chester Counties, announced they plan to soon introduce two pieces of legislation designed to provide COLAs for beneficiaries of both the Pennsylvania Public School Employees Retirement System and the Pennsylvania State Employees Retirement System.

"Everyone deserves to live and to retire with dignity and financial security," Muth, a member of the PSERS Board of Trustees, said in a statement. "Retired teachers and school employees across our Commonwealth worked their entire lives and contributed so much to our communities and to our children only to struggle with the steady increases in cost-of-living since 2002."

The legislators said that several measures show a cumulative rate of inflation of more than 50 percent from the 20-year period between 2002 and 2022.

Muth said PSERS needs to prioritize the retirement security of its annuitants "over high-priced investment managers and risky private equity investments that include millions and millions of dollars of investment fees."

"Across our country, the continued unchecked corporate greed has made the cost of everything — items essential to life — continue to increase and people on fixed incomes have no relief and cannot afford to keep pace."

Kane said that state employees such as public teachers are an integral part of Pennsylvania society, and the state owes a "debt of gratitude to our retired workers, and we need to do more than words when they are struggling, we have to back up our words with actions."

The lawmakers say that they are required by law to enact legislation granting cost-of-living increases to retired teachers, and that between 1967 and 2001, there was a COLA granted to PSERS annuitants about every two-and-a-half years, but a new increase hasn't come in more than 20 years.

If the proposed legislation is passed into law, it would not cover survivor annuitants.

As for SERS, the senators stated that that retirement system has had eight cost-of-living adjustments during the past 40 years.

The lawmakers say they are continuing to draft language for their bills and the measures would be formally introduced in the near future.

The Associated Press reported last week that inflation increased by more than 8 percent over the past year, as Americans are continuing to struggle with higher costs of living in various categories.