The Senate has done one thing with the veterans’ cost-of-living bill since it arrived: send it to a committee. Sen. Jerry Moran, a Kansas Republican, introduced the Veterans’ Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act of 2026, S. 4487, on May 11, and it was read twice and referred to the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee. No hearing, markup or vote has followed in the more than five months since.

Fifteen senators have signed on as cosponsors. The bill is not dead, tabled or withdrawn. It is simply waiting, while its House companion has moved well ahead of it.

What Moran’s bill would change

Section 2 of S. 4487 ties the increase in VA disability compensation to the same percentage as the Social Security cost-of-living adjustment. The Social Security Administration certified that 2027 increase at 3.6 percent on October 14, 2026. The bill sets December 1, 2026 as the date the new VA rates would start. That is the bill’s own date, and it differs from Social Security’s January 2027 timing.

Applied to the rate for a veteran rated 100 percent disabled with no dependents, which VA lists at $3,938.58 a month, the formula points to about $4,080. That is a projection from the bill’s formula, not a rate VA has published.

Why the committee decides this

Veterans on disability compensation are asking whether the raise is going to happen this year. In the Senate, the Veterans’ Affairs Committee decides whether the bill gets a hearing and a vote before it can reach the full chamber, and the page for S. 4487 lists a single action: the May 11 referral. Cosponsors show support among senators, but they cannot move a bill out of committee on their own. Until that committee acts, veterans are paid at the rates VA publishes now, and anyone who is counting on the higher amount in December should treat it as unconfirmed.

What changed this year: Social Security and Medicare change every year, and nobody sends you a memo. The Retirement Money Brief breaks down what changed and what to do.

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Sitting in committee does not end a bill. Anything introduced in this Congress stays alive until the 119th Congress closes in early January, when unfinished bills lapse and sponsors have to start over.

Where the House companion stands

H.R. 8552 carries the same title. Rep. Morgan Luttrell, a Texas Republican, introduced it on April 28, 2026, with four cosponsors, and it went to the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee. On June 22 it was referred to that committee’s Subcommittee on Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs.

The subcommittee held a hearing on June 25. On June 30 it held a markup session and forwarded the bill to the full committee by voice vote, according to the page for H.R. 8552. Nothing has been recorded on it since.

Count the steps and the difference is plain. The House bill has six recorded actions and the Senate bill has one. Neither has passed a chamber, and each now waits on a full committee.

Moran’s bill and Luttrell’s bill share a title, and the Senate version was introduced two weeks after the House one. The House bill arrived April 28, and the Senate bill followed on May 11. Since then the two have taken very different roads.

What stalled looks like for a household

For a veteran living on the top rating, a delay is not abstract. A budget built around a $4,080 deposit on December 1 would come up about $141 a month short if the bill does not pass by then. Veterans at lower ratings or with dependents have different rate lines, and the projection above does not describe them.

The cost-of-living adjustment itself is already set on the Social Security side. The 3.6 percent figure is certified, and Social Security benefits rise in January 2027. What is missing for veterans is the vote that would carry that percentage over to VA compensation.

A veteran who also draws Social Security would see that program’s raise in January regardless of what happens to S. 4487. The VA half of the household budget is the part that depends on the committee, and it has now waited 169 days since the referral with no action.

Is the raise still possible this year?

The short answer is yes in principle and unlikely on the bill’s own timetable. Congress can act quickly when it chooses, and a bill can move from committee to passage in days. S. 4487 has shown no sign of that so far, and the days left before December 1 are few.

For the raise to start on the December 1 date written into the bill, a version has to clear both chambers and reach the president about five weeks from now. The Senate bill has no committee action to build on, and the House bill has not been taken up by its full committee.

Whether Senate Veterans’ Affairs picks up S. 4487 before the year ends is the open question. Nothing on the bill’s page points either way, and the committee has made no change to its status since the referral.

Counting on the veterans’ raise this year?

A veteran who plans around a December raise while the Senate bill sits untouched risks a household budget that is about $141 a month too high. The Senate bill has not moved in more than five months.

This bill covers disability compensation. The Veterans Benefits Action Kit covers the next question for wartime veterans and surviving spouses with limited income: the three VA pension levels including Aid & Attendance, and how to file for free (VA Form 21P-527EZ).

It includes the pension-poacher warning signs and a claim tracker, so a family can keep every VA filing in one place while Congress decides.

Get the claim tracker and free-filing steps for VA benefits →

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This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.