From, Cost of Living Allowances (COLA) to Employee Incentives . . .
What Have You Done For Me Lately? L`Jada Storm Parker
MHR 6751 Labor Relations and Collective Bargaining

Abstract
The cost of living allowances (COLA), was a portion of benefits, that was at one time, a reactions, to the action of inflation that all U.S. employees felt the impact of, however looked forward to seeing on their pay check stubs, and as part of a benefit to subsidize for the lack of pay raises, as the economy yearly increased on its services and goods to the public.
The term cost of living allowances was a yearly incentive to all who were employed, being that prices of all services and goods increased year after year, however the employee paycheck failed to keep up with the rising cost of increased to live.
Employers began to become a bit more creative in assisting employees with various offset incentives that were pleasing to employees as the COLA began to phase out. More attractive to the employee was the opportunity to be compensated more often than once a year with an ineffective form of benefit as COLA. In all actually, the COLA was a contradiction to its name and purpose. Cost of living payouts were not equally proportioned with the Cost of living increase. As a result employees began to question the employers with “What have you done for me lately?”

As I began to ponder the actions and reactions to the payments of the cost of living allowances (COLA), when compared to employee incentives, the incentives became more appealing to me and I am sure is the case with many employees. I began to reflect back to when I was in the military as a service member and as an army wife, and COLA was something we looked forward to receiving with each new set of orders from base to base. Then I consider the bonuses that were also provided or offered for things like