"...Federal retirees will receive a 1.7 percent cost-of-living adjustment in 2013, according to the latest government figures.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics early Tuesday released September’s inflation figure, the final data point needed to calculate the 2013 COLA. Inflation stayed relatively low over 2012, resulting in a 2013 COLA that is much less than this year’s 3.6 percent bump.
The government publishes the annual cost-of-living adjustments typically in late October, based on the percentage increase (if any) in the average Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) for the third quarter of the current year over the average for the third quarter of the last year in which a COLA became effective. The CPI-W measures price changes in food, housing, gas and other goods and services..."
