What it means for you
A 2022 law raised VA disability pay, survivor benefits, and the clothing allowance by 8.7% starting Dec. 1, 2022, matching Social Security. It was the largest such raise since 1981, and bigger checks began arriving in January 2023.
Who benefits: Veterans with service-connected disabilities, their dependents, and surviving spouses and children on Dependency and Indemnity Compensation; Military Times reported about 5 million veterans get monthly benefit checks.
If you get VA disability compensation, your monthly check went up 8.7% starting December 1, 2022, with the higher payments arriving in January 2023. The same raise applied to the extra pay for dependents, the yearly clothing allowance for some disabled veterans, and Dependency and Indemnity Compensation for surviving spouses and children. A veteran rated 100% disabled with no dependents went from $3,332.06 to $3,621.95 a month, which is $289.89 more. You didn’t have to apply, because VA raised every payment automatically.
Congress has to pass a law each year to give veterans the same cost-of-living raise that Social Security gets. With prices climbing fast in 2022, the raise came to 8.7%, the largest since 1981. The higher rates stay built into later years’ payments, and each year’s new raise is added on top of them.
Rep. Elaine Luria of Virginia, who chaired the House Veterans’ Affairs subcommittee on disability benefits, introduced the bill with Rep. Troy Nehls, a Texas Republican. Luria said House Veterans’ Affairs ranking member Mike Bost had worked with her on the legislation for two years. Committee Chair Mark Takano brought it to the floor, and the House passed it without a recorded vote in September 2022. In the Senate, Veterans’ Affairs Chair Jon Tester and the committee’s top Republican, Jerry Moran, led its unanimous passage; the White House also credited Senators Patty Murray and John Boozman with leadership. President Joe Biden signed it on October 10, 2022.
VeteransLower costs
Sources
- Public Law 117-191, Veterans' Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act of 2022U.S. Government Publishing Office, October 10, 2022
- Past rates, 2023 Veterans disability compensation ratesU.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
- Past rates, 2022 Veterans disability compensation ratesU.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
- 2023 cost-of-living adjustment for VA benefitsVeterans Benefits Administration
- Bills signed, H.R. 468, H.R. 1766, H.R. 4877, H.R. 5641, H.R. 7500, H.R. 7846, H.R. 8982The White House, October 10, 2022
- Congressional Record, House consideration of H.R. 7846U.S. Government Publishing Office, September 13, 2022
- Tester, Moran lead Senate passage of bill to deliver annual cost-of-living increase for veteransU.S. Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, September 26, 2022
- Veterans, retirees get 8.7% Social Security cost-of-living boostFederal Times, October 13, 2022
- Largest veterans' pay raise in 40 years signed into lawAugusta Free Press, October 18, 2022
How we checked this
Drafted by Claude Opus 5.5 (Anthropic) on November 11, 2026. Checked against its sources by GPT-5.6-sol (OpenAI) on November 11, 2026, which corrected it. Confirmed the law, effective date, 8.7% adjustment, benefit amounts, passage, and delivered status. Added three legislators whom the cited primary sources identify as doing substantive work.
Spot a mistake? Send a correction and we'll fix it.
