The first COLA reading is in

Published August 12, 2026. The benefits-news items below were current as of that date; projections were projections when written. This is an archived issue of our weekly email — subscribe here to get new issues first.

The first of three COLA readings landed today

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the July Consumer Price Index this morning. The CPI-W — the specific index that sets the annual cost-of-living adjustment — rose 3.4% over the 12 months ending July, to an index level of 327.104. That is one tenth cooler than the 3.5% reading for the 12 months ending June.

July is the first of three months that count. The 2027 COLA is set from the average CPI-W across July, August, and September, measured against the same quarter a year earlier. Two readings remain, and the final figure is announced in mid-October. Anything quoted as a “2027 COLA” before then is a projection, not a rate. (Source: BLS, Consumer Price Index — July 2026, released August 12, 2026.)

Why this reaches your check. The same CPI-W figure drives VA disability compensation and military retired pay. Because CRSC is paid against the retired pay you waive in order to receive VA compensation, it moves with them — and for Chapter 61 retirees, so does the longevity-based ceiling that caps what CRSC can pay.

You are now rated at your medicated level of function

Worth knowing if you have not read it: VA amended 38 CFR 4.10 — the functional-impairment rule at the front of the rating schedule — effective February 17, 2026. The added language is blunt. The examiner “will not estimate or discount improvements to the disability due to the effects of medication or treatment,” and “if medication or other treatment lowers the level of disability, the rating will be based on that lowered disability level.”

That runs against the direction a line of court cases had been going — Jones, McCarroll, and most recently Ingram v. Collins — which had pushed VA toward rating what a condition would look like untreated. (Source: 91 FR 7118, interim final rule published February 17, 2026.)

What it means at the exam table. The impairment that counts is the impairment that remains while you are on your medication. So describe what is still limited — the days the medication does not carry, the activity you have given up, the side effects you live with. Do not describe your best day and assume the examiner will infer the rest. Those ratings are what a CRSC packet is built on.

Assuming your packet is “in” because you hit send

Army retirees email packets to HRC and treat the auto-reply as a receipt. It is not. The number in that reply is a mailroom ticket assigned to the email — not a claim number — and it does not confirm your packet was logged to a claim. Retirees have waited months on packets that were never opened.

Confirm by voice. Army CRSC: 1-888-276-9472, Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Eastern. Ask them to state that your claim is logged and what date they show it received. Write that date down — the clock you are counting runs from it.