Sign of the Times?

According to Stars and Stripes European Edition ,The Marine Corps eliminated cost-of-living pay for new local hires this month, and other military employers may do the same after the Department of Defense dropped the requirement. All DOD agencies, including the Army and Air Force Exchange Service, may now decide whether to pay post allowance to U.S. workers hired abroad since May 6, the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness said in May. The Marine Corps stopped paying the benefit to new hires on Aug. 10. Officials with AAFES, the Army and the Air Force said Friday that decisions were not yet made on the post allowance pay. U.S. citizens hired in Europe and the Pacific could lose out on thousands of dollars in annual salary if post allowance is abandoned — money co-workers recruited from the United States will continue to receive. It is an abrupt reversal by the DOD, which last year ordered the military to pay all locally hired, full-time workers the allowance — plus tens of millions of dollars in back pay — which had been withheld by some services for about a decade.
The question is whether this trend may carry over to the US corporations dealing with both expats and domestic employees. COLA's in this economy may be open to providing employee's with funds that might not be necessary.