(U.S. Senate) – The U.S. Senate has unanimously passed U.S. Senator Jon Tester’s bipartisan bill to increase certain VA benefits for veterans and their families.

Tester’s Veterans’ Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act increases the VA’s compensation to disabled veterans and Gold Star Families, the spouses and children who’ve lost a loved one in service to the nation.

“This bipartisan legislation allows Montana veterans to keep up with the rising costs of housing, utilities and food,” said Tester, Ranking Member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee. “Veterans have earned this benefit and this increase is a well-deserved step in the right direction to live up to the promises we made to our men and women in uniform. I look forward to the president signing it into law very soon.”

The cost-of-living adjustment is determined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index on a yearly basis. The cost-of-living adjustment for veterans, equal to the adjustment given to Social Security recipients, would go into effect on Dec. 1, 2017.

Tester recently introduced legislation to honor Gold Star Families by increasing the benefit awarded to these families by about $300 a month and expanding the benefit to families of fully-disabled veterans.