Tens of thousands of retired teachers, support professionals, and state employees face uncertainty in their day-to-day lives after going decades without a pension increase.
Imagine going more than 25 years at your job without receiving a single raise.
Now, imagine going that long as a public sector retiree without receiving any cost-of-living adjustments (COLA) during that same time period and the hardships that would bring as you are living out your twilight years.
“ My dream was to be a teacher. I had much respect for the teachers that I had in my life, and I wanted that same thing for my livelihood,” Bob McVay, a retired teacher and school principal, said in an interview.
“ My dream now, after all these years, has turned into a nightmare. It is no longer a positive dream. I’m so hurt. I’m so disgusted and fed up with the selfishness that I see [in the Pennsylvania capitol].”
McVay, who taught and worked as a principal at the Franklin Area School District in Venango County for over 30 years, is one of the more than 60,000 retirees, most of whom are in their 80s and 90s, that have not received a COLA increase for nearly 25 years.
In 2001, the Pennsylvania General Assembly passed Act 9, which overhauled the commonwealth’s pension system and increased pensions for active educators, support professionals and state employees by 25%.
This change however did not include retirees like McVay, who stopped working prior to the passage of Act 9. Now, most of these retirees are living on less than $20,000 per year.
For context, Pennsylvania’s poverty level for a single person hovers around $16,000.
“ I could no longer afford my home in Franklin. I sold my home we had raised our boys in,” McVay said. “My wife and I moved into a house trailer down in Florida and because the tax situation down here was better for us than what it was in Pennsylvania at that time.”
The last time these retirees received a COLA was in 2002. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, inflation has increased by 85%, the cost of food has increased by 97% and the cost of medical care has increased by 111% since then.
To remedy these increases, Democrats in the Pennsylvania House passed COLA increases ranging from 15% to 24.5% with strong bipartisan support in the last two sessions, but those efforts have stalled in the Republican-controlled Pennsylvania Senate.
State Sen. Frank Farry (R-Bucks) introduced bipartisan legislation that pays for COLA increases by using money from the Rainy Day fund, but his bill has been languishing in the Senate Finance committee since last June.
“ I cannot take my wife out for dinner,” McVay said. “We’ve been married since 1968, so we’ve been married a long time, and once in a while you like to do something nice and take your wife to a nice restaurant. I’ve not been able to do that since the day I retired.”
