Sponsors (23)
The bill raises and inflation‑protects the death gratuity to give bereaved military families more reliable financial support, at the cost of modestly higher federal spending and without retroactive coverage for earlier deaths.
Surviving family members of service members who die on or after Jan 1, 2026 will receive a larger lump‑sum death gratuity, providing immediate, higher financial support.
Survivors' death gratuity payments will be indexed to inflation with annual adjustments and Federal Register publication, preserving real value over time and making updates predictable.
Higher death gratuities help bereaved families cover immediate needs such as burial costs, short‑term living expenses, or debts during the transition after a service member's death.
Higher and inflation‑indexed gratuity payouts will modestly increase Department of Defense outlays, raising federal costs that are borne by taxpayers and could require offsets elsewhere.
The increase is not retroactive: families of service members who died before Jan 1, 2026 will not receive the larger gratuity, creating unequal treatment across bereaved families.
Rounding annual adjustments to the nearest $100 could slightly over‑ or under‑compensate some survivors compared with exact inflation changes.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Raises the death gratuity paid to survivors for deaths on/after Jan 1, 2026, and adds an annual CPI‑U COLA starting Jan 1, 2027 (rounded to nearest $100).
Official title: To increase the death gratuity payable upon the death of a member of the Armed Forces and to provide for annual cost-of-living adjustments to such death gratuity, and for other purposes.
Introduced March 12, 2026 by Matt Van Epps · Last progress March 12, 2026
Increases the lump-sum death gratuity paid to survivors of service members who die on active duty and creates an annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) tied to the CPI‑U. The higher base gratuity applies to deaths on or after January 1, 2026, and beginning January 1, 2027 the gratuity will be adjusted each January 1 by the prior calendar year’s CPI‑U change (rounded to the nearest $100) with the Secretary of Defense publishing the new amount in the Federal Register.