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HR 491
Introduced Re-checks Congress.gov for new actions and updates the bill's status, and fills in any sponsors, committees, or related bills that are missing. It does not re-pull sponsors/cosponsors/committees/related — those rarely change — and it skips all work if nothing has changed upstream, so it's cheap to click.

Equal COLA Act

To amend title 5, United States Code, to achieve parity between the cost-of-living adjustment with respect to an annuity under the Federal Employees Retirement System and an annuity under the Civil Service Retirement System, and for other purposes.

Introduced Jan 16, 2025

Latest action (Sep 16, 2025) ASSUMING FIRST SPONSORSHIP - Mr. Walkinshaw asked unanimous consent that he may hereafter be considered as the first sponsor of H.R. 491, a bill originally introduced by Representative Connolly, for the purpose of adding cosponsors and requesting reprintings pursuant to clause 7 of rule XII. Agreed to without objection.

Referred to
Oversight and Government Reform Committee
Policy area
Government Operations and Politics
Issues
Economy & Taxes
Legislative subjects (2)
Government employee pay, benefits, personnel managementInflation and prices

Summary

This bill would modify the cost-of-living adjustment formula for federal employees and retirees in the Federal Employees Retirement System to achieve parity with adjustments under the Civil Service Retirement System. The new COLA formula would adjust annuities annually based on the percent change in the Consumer Price Index, rounded to the nearest one-tenth of one percent. The adjustment would take effect December 1 of each year for all annuities. These changes would apply to all COLAs made after the bill's enactment, regardless of when the annuity began.

AI-generated plain-language summary of the bill text — neutral, and may be imperfect. See the full text below for the exact wording.

Sponsor (1)
86 cosponsors

Actions (3)
  1. Sep 16, 2025 ASSUMING FIRST SPONSORSHIP - Mr. Walkinshaw asked unanimous consent that he may hereafter be considered as the first sponsor of H.R. 491, a bill originally introduced by Representative Connolly, for the purpose of adding cosponsors and requesting reprintings pursuant to clause 7 of rule XII. Agreed to without objection. · house
  2. Jan 16, 2025 Referred to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. · house
  3. Jan 16, 2025 Introduced in House

More bills on these subjects (8)

Other bills that carry the most legislative subjects in common with this one (topical discovery — distinct from the procedural related bills above).

  • HR 7314 — Advancing Commonsense Policies Act (shares 2 subjects)
  • HR 3317 — Honoring Civil Servants Killed in the Line of Duty Act (shares 2 subjects)
  • S 2296 — National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026 (shares 2 subjects)
  • HR 185 — Responsible Legislating Act (shares 2 subjects)
  • HR 1654 — CUTS Act (shares 2 subjects)
  • S 624 — Equal COLA Act (shares 2 subjects)
  • S 534 — Presidential Allowance Modernization Act of 2025 (shares 2 subjects)
  • S 86 — A bill to repeal the provision of law that provides automatic pay adjustments for Members of Congress. (shares 2 subjects)

Similar bills (6)

Bills with similar text or summary — includes reintroductions across Congresses. Ranked by semantic similarity of the bill text (computed locally); a neutral discovery aid, not a claim the bills are duplicates.

  • S 624 — Equal COLA Act · Introduced Feb 18, 2025 · Cong. 119 74%
  • HR 5841 — Boosting Benefits and COLAs for Seniors Act · Introduced Oct 28, 2025 · Cong. 119 69%
  • S 3059 — Boosting Benefits and COLAs for Seniors Act · Introduced Oct 27, 2025 · Cong. 119 65%
  • S 3603 — COLAs Don’t Count Act of 2026 · Introduced Jan 8, 2026 · Cong. 119 62%
  • HR 6986 — COLAs Don’t Count Act of 2026 · Introduced May 20, 2026 · Cong. 119 61%
  • HR 7480 — FAIR Act · Introduced Feb 10, 2026 · Cong. 119 60%

Text versions (1)
  • Introduced in House · Jan 16, 2025

Only one text version is on file, so there’s no earlier version to compare against yet.

Full text

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

January 16, 2025

Mr. Connolly (for himself, Mr. Mullin, Ms. Tlaib, Ms. Brownley, Mr. Boyle of Pennsylvania, Mr. Cleaver, Mr. Davis of North Carolina, Mrs. McBath, Ms. DelBene, Mr. Frost, Mr. Cohen, Ms. Leger Fernandez, Mr. Mrvan, Mr. Thanedar, Ms. Titus, Mrs. Cherfilus-McCormick, Mr. Raskin, Ms. McClellan, Mr. Casar, Mr. Davis of Illinois, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, Mr. Garamendi, Ms. Salinas, Mr. Lynch, Mr. Goldman of New York, Ms. Hoyle of Oregon, Mr. Takano, and Mr. Mfume) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

A BILL

To amend title 5, United States Code, to achieve parity between the cost-of-living adjustment with respect to an annuity under the Federal Employees Retirement System and an annuity under the Civil Service Retirement System, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the “Equal COLA Act”.

SEC. 2. INCREASE IN COLA FOR FERS ANNUITIES.

(a) In General.—Paragraph (1) of subsection (b) of section 8462 of title 5, United States Code, is amended to read as follows:

“(1) Except as provided in subsection (c), effective December 1 of each year, each annuity payable from the Fund having a commencing date not later than such December 1 shall be increased by the percent change in the price index for the base quarter of such year over the price index for the base quarter of the preceding year in which an adjustment under this subsection was made, adjusted to the nearest \1/10\ of 1 percent.”.

(b) Application.—The amendment made by subsection (a) shall apply to—

(1) any cost-of-living adjustment under section 8462 of title 5, United States Code, made after the date of the enactment of this Act; and

(2) any annuity covered by such section commencing before, on, or after such date. <all>

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