The Office of Personnel Management made a small reduction to its outstanding backlog of retirement claims in April. The total backlog went down by 1,241, a 6.6% reduction.
At the end of March, the backlog was at 18,730. In April, OPM was able to get it under 18,000. The agency is also ahead of where it was last April when the backlog was at 18,932.
For comparison, at the end of April in 2016, OPM’s backlog was at 14,517 and 18,226 in April 2015. OPM processed many more claims in April 2016 (11,935) which was the reason for the significant improvement versus the other years.
OPM also said that it took 58 days, on average, to process claims last month. This is markedly better than a year ago when it was taking 72 days.
The latest complete statistics are included below.
What is Your Experience?
Some of our readers have reported delays in processing their retirement applications, and with a backlog that is consistently this high that is perhaps not surprising.
Last month, for example, this comment was left on my article summarizing the March retirement processing statistics:
Not everyone has had a bad experience, however. This is another recent comment recounting a fast turnaround with the retirement application process:
What has your experience been with the retirement application process, good or bad? Share your story in the comments at the end of the article.
| Month | Claims Received | Claims Processed | Inventory (Steady state goal is 13,000) | Monthly Average Processing Time in Days | FYTD Average Processing Time in Days |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct-16 | 7,326 | 5,795 | 16,677 | 67 | 67 |
| Nov-16 | 5,065 | 5,723 | 16,019 | 66 | 66 |
| Dec-16 | 5,483 | 6,405 | 15,097 | 74 | 69 |
| Jan-17 | 15,317 | 7,327 | 23,087 | 75 | 71 |
| Feb-17 | 9,114 | 8,285 | 23,916 | 56 | 67 |
| Mar-17 | 7,216 | 10,602 | 20,530 | 61 | 66 |
| Apr-17 | 6,581 | 8,179 | 18,932 | 72 | 67 |
| May-17 | 5,548 | 8,340 | 16,140 | 71 | 67 |
| Jun-17 | 6,141 | 7,751 | 14,530 | 68 | 67 |
| Jul-17 | 10,070 | 7,509 | 17,091 | 67 | 67 |
| Aug-17 | 7,136 | 7,102 | 17,125 | 65 | 67 |
| Sep-17 | 8,810 | 9,107 | 16,828 | 62 | 67 |
| Oct-17 | 8,850 | 6,818 | 18,860 | 64 | 64 |
| Nov-17 | 5,572 | 5,138 | 19,294 | 68 | 66 |
| Dec-17 | 5,568 | 10,347 | 14,515 | 60 | 63 |
| Jan-18 | 14,590 | 8,638 | 20,467 | 63 | 63 |
| Feb-18 | 13,290 | 9,532 | 24,225 | 46 | 59 |
| Mar-18 | 7,767 | 13,262 | 18,730 | 49 | 57 |
| Apr-18 | 8,390 | 9,631 | 17,489 | 58 | 57 |
