The backlog of outstanding retirement claims at the Office of Personnel Management remained relatively flat in July.
OPM received 8,000 new claims and was able to process 8,088 bringing the total backlog down to 18,413. It stood at 18,501 at the end of June so this represents a .48% reduction.
OPM spent an average of 55 days processing claims during July which is below its stated goal of 60 days.
The backlog was at 18,334 at the end of July 2018, so it is basically unchanged from that time. However, the backlog has been as high as 23,370 this year when it peaked at the end of February after the normal start of year surge of new retirement applications that flood OPM to kick off a calendar year.
If this all sounds depressing, keep in mind the backlog has been over 60,000 at times in the past (that came back in January 2012). While following years have certainly seen an improvement over astronomical numbers like that, a recent GAO report found that OPM still has work to do to improve its retirement application process.
A copy of the latest complete statistics are included below.
| 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-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 |
| May-18 | 7,625 | 7,090 | 18,024 | 58 | 58 |
| Jun-18 | 9,397 | 9,223 | 18,198 | 65 | 59 |
| Jul-18 | 8,281 | 8,145 | 18,334 | 57 | 59 |
| Aug-18 | 8,826 | 9,647 | 17,513 | 56 | 58 |
| Sep-18 | 7,142 | 7,027 | 17,628 | 64 | 59 |
| Oct-18 | 9,012 | 6,911 | 19,729 | 63 | 63 |
| Nov-18 | 7,510 | 8,077 | 19,162 | 61 | 62 |
| Dec-18 | 5,782 | 6,925 | 18,019 | 60 | 61 |
| Jan-19 | 13,264 | 8,162 | 23,121 | 58 | 60 |
| Feb-19 | 10,792 | 10,543 | 23,370 | 58 | 57 |
| Mar-19 | 10,048 | 13,217 | 20,201 | 50 | 55 |
| Apr-19 | 6,993 | 9,392 | 17,802 | 56 | 55 |
| May-19 | 7,877 | 8,451 | 17,228 | 62 | 56 |
| Jun-19 | 8,201 | 6,928 | 18,501 | 60 | 56 |
| Jul-19 | 8,000 | 8,088 | 18,413 | 55 | 56 |
