The cost-of-living allowance offsets the prices for goods and services for service members assigned to foreign countries or outside of the contiguous United States. (Pixabay)
A strong dollar means a lower cost-of-living allowance for Marines stationed in Japan and South Korea, the Marine Corps said in a Facebook post recently.
The Defense Department on May 2 announced lower allowances for service members based on a drop in the actual costs to consumers of things like groceries and clothing.
Subsequently, Marine Corps Installations Pacific erroneously posted on Facebook that the COLA dip would not affect Marines on Okinawa, at the Combined Arms Training Center Camp Fuji, south of Tokyo, and at Camp Mujuk in South Korea.
On Saturday, the command corrected itself.
“While Okinawa, CATC Fuji and Camp Mujuk OCOLA will not fluctuate due to cost-of-living changes, it is changing due to currency fluctuation. We did not account for that in our initial post,” the command announced on Facebook.
“We apologize for any confusion this may have caused,” the post said. “We will confirm the expected changes for all MCIPAC installations and share updated examples and financial management resources in the very near future.”
On Tuesday, a dollar bought 138.75 Japanese yen and 1,312.59 South Korean won, up from 127.86 yen and 1,239.51 won in mid-January.
COLA offsets prices for goods and services for service members assigned to foreign countries or outside of the contiguous United States. More than 230,000 troops receive an overseas COLA, defense officials said when announcing the changes.
In December, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin paused the allowance decrease for 90 days while the Pentagon addressed complaints that some service members in places like Hawaii were put into financial distress.
Congress had already limited allowance decreases to once every six months as part of the National Defense Authorization Act, the annual defense spending.
Decreases began May 15, with another cut scheduled for Nov. 15. Those will be reflected in service members' pay June 1 and Dec. 1, according to the DOD announcement.
For example, a DOD cost-of-living calculator shows the allowance paid to a sergeant on Okinawa with six years’ service and two dependents is dropping from $172.08 to $73.42.
A captain on Okinawa with the same family size and length of service is dropping from $230 to $98.13, according to the calculator.
