Purpose—1989 c 272: "The legislature recognizes that inflation erodes the purchasing power of retirement benefits. Although the benefit provided to state retirees from social security is fully protected, the benefits provided by the public employees' retirement system, plan 1, and the teachers' retirement system, plan 1 provide an automatic cost-of-living adjustment only for persons who receive the minimum benefit.
The purpose of this act is to add provisions to the teachers' retirement system and the public employees' retirement system which will help mitigate the impact of inflation on retirees of those systems. These additional provisions are intended to reflect and implement the following policies:
(1) The minimum benefit is increased in order to provide a more adequate basic standard of living to persons who retired long ago under lower salaries and less generous retirement benefit formulas; and
(2) Retirees whose benefits have lost forty percent of their purchasing power are made eligible for automatic adjustments which are provided in a manner that is consistent with the retirement age and benefit provisions of plan 2 of the teachers' retirement system and the public employees' retirement system." [
1989 c 272 s 1.]