VETS, WIDOWS FADE AWAY IN POVERTY.

Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY 

It comes down to this: Do we want our impoverished veterans or their widows to live out their lives in dignity?

A 2004 study conducted by the Office of Policy, Planning and Preparedness in the Department of Veterans Affairs found that VA pensions ``do not provide sufficient income to cover veterans' and spouses' living expenses ... allowing them to live their lives in dignity and not turn to welfare assistance.

``The program does not meet congressional intent to provide a level of income that places VA pension participants above the poverty line.''

Thank you for your service, G.I. Joes and Janes. Now here are some K rations and a cot to get you through your final days. Some life of dignity.

I promised to get back to you with answers from our congressional leaders on a column I wrote last week about the 89-year-old widow of a World War II combat veteran who was ineligible to receive her late husband's pension because she was earning too much - $11,880 a year on his Social Security pension.

To qualify as a surviving spouse with no dependent children, Bea Cordell would have to be living on a maximum of $7,094 a year - or roughly $590 a month.

Had she been housebound, she could have been making all of $8,670 a year to be eligible. Good luck paying rent and utilities and eating three squares a day on that kind of income.

``The theory that someone living on $11,000 a year Social Security doesn't need a VA pension and isn't eligible as the widow of a combat veteran is unconscionable,'' Rep. Howard Berman, D-Van Nuys, said Monday.

Berman cited the VA report and promised to meet next month with the ranking Democrat on the House Veterans Affairs Committee - Rep. Lane Evans of Illinois - to introduce a bill that would increase the income limits.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., also promised to introduce legislation to change the income limits.

``An annual income limit of about $7,000 for a widow of a service member to qualify for pension benefits is ridiculously low,'' she said. ``This would make virtually any serviceman's wife now living in California - or elsewhere in the country - ineligible for these benefits.''

As a start, Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Sherman Oaks, suggested the government treat a widow's income benefit level the same as a veteran's with no dependents - $10,579 a year.

``A little old lady can't live any cheaper than a little old man,'' Sherman said. ``No one can live anywhere in the country on 7,000 bucks a year.''

It's not as if the government doesn't have the money. VA officials complained last month that they were having only limited success in finding the nation's poor veterans and impoverished widows to share in the $22 billion the VA had lying around.

Now we know why the pension pot had so much money in it. Nobody qualifies for money. You have to be living so far below the poverty line you're not even on the VA's radar screen.

``Most veterans are slightly above the poverty line, and spouses are well below it, forcing pensioners to make sacrifices to make ends meet,'' the report states.

``Given the study results show 83 percent of the spouses are at or below the poverty line, Congress should consider increasing the VA pension benefit amount.''

You're probably wondering where this report has been hiding for the last year, because I sure am. Wish I had an answer. VA officials promised Monday to track it.

Congress shouldn't escape criticism, either. Many veterans or their widows have been complaining for years about how absurdly low their income must be for them to get pension money, but their complaints have fallen on deaf ears.

To let those income levels go unchanged just shows Congress wasn't paying attention. Maybe they thought vets and their widows were yesterday's

news. They're not. They're the reason we're still a democracy today.

The least we owe these men and women is a little money - a few hundred dollars more a month - to live out their lives in dignity.

Dennis McCarthy, [phone]

dennis.mccarthy(at)dailynews.com