The Office of Personnel Management was able to reduce its backlog of outstanding retirement claims by almost 8% last month.
OPM received 6,581 new claims last month but processed 8,179. That brought the backlog down from over 20,000 to 18,932. The backlog has been as high as almost 24,000 this year thanks to a surge of retirements in January.
OPM notes that the “steady state” number of backlogged claims in 13,000, so it still has quite a ways to go until it gets it back down to close to that number. It got close last June, when the backlog stood at 13,529, but it hasn’t been under 13,000 since December 2015.
The latest complete statistics are included below.
| Month | Claims Received | Claims Processed | Inventory (Steady state is 13,000) | Avg. # of Days to Process Case in 60 days or less | Avg. # of Days to Process Case in more than 60 days |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct-15 | 8,374 | 10,438 | 12,642 | 38 | 86 |
| Nov-15 | 6,019 | 6,099 | 12,562 | 37 | 98 |
| Dec-15 | 4,753 | 5,916 | 11,399 | 40 | 104 |
| Jan-16 | 15,423 | 7,061 | 19,761 | 38 | 94 |
| Feb-16 | 11,293 | 8,362 | 22,692 | 36 | 96 |
| Mar-16 | 5,741 | 9,222 | 19,211 | 44 | 118 |
| Apr-16 | 7,241 | 11,935 | 14,517 | 50 | 92 |
| May-16 | 7,210 | 7,692 | 14,035 | 37 | 103 |
| Jun-16 | 5,929 | 6,435 | 13,529 | 37 | 115 |
| Jul-16 | 9,238 | 7,205 | 15,562 | 38 | 110 |
| Aug-16 | 6,818 | 6,046 | 16,334 | 42 | 112 |
| Sep-16 | 6,946 | 8,134 | 15,146 | 45 | 100 |
| Oct-16 | 7,326 | 5,795 | 16,677 | 49 | 91 |
| Nov-16 | 5,065 | 5,723 | 16,019 | 48 | 94 |
| Dec-16 | 5,483 | 6,405 | 15,097 | 52 | 95 |
| Jan-17 | 15,317 | 7,327 | 23,087 | 53 | 89 |
| Feb-17 | 9,114 | 8,285 | 23,916 | 38 | 104 |
| Mar-17 | 7,216 | 10,602 | 20,530 | 38 | 105 |
| Apr-17 | 6,581 | 8,179 | 18,932 | 51 | 80 |
