The Office of Personnel Management saw its retirement applications backlog grow by 2.3% in November despite receiving 37% fewer new applications than it did in October.
The total backlog went from 18,860 at the end of October to 19,294 to close out November. This happened despite only receiving 5,572 new applications during November, whereas 8,850 were received in October.
The reason lies in the number OPM processed – in November, it only processed 5,138, 25% less than it did in October.
The total backlog is now the highest it has been since February and is now 20% higher than it was a year ago. It has been on a slow but steady general upward trend since the summer, increasing 12% in October after a slight improvement in September.
The latest complete figures are included below.
| Month | Claims Received | Claims Processed | Inventory (Steady state is 13,000) | Avg. # of Days to Process C ase in 60 days or less | Avg. # of Days to Process Case in more than 60 days |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 |
| May-17 | 5,548 | 8,340 | 16,140 | 48 | 89 |
| Jun-17 | 6,141 | 7,751 | 14,530 | 47 | 99 |
| Jul-17 | 10,070 | 7,509 | 17,091 | 45 | 98 |
| Aug-17 | 7,136 | 7,102 | 17,125 | 47 | 105 |
| Sep-17 | 8,810 | 9,107 | 16,828 | 45 | 93 |
| Oct-17 | 8,850 | 6,818 | 18,860 | 44 | 93 |
| Nov-17 | 5,572 | 5,138 | 19,294 | 46 | 97 |
