Retirement Backlog Shows Slight Improvement in August

OPM made a modest improvement to the retirement backlog in August thanks to an uptick in claims processing.

The backlog of outstanding retirement claims at the Office of Personnel Management improved modestly in August.

The total backlog now stands at 17,576, down from 18,413 at the end of July, a reduction of 4.5%.

The improvement came thanks to OPM processing more claims in August than it had previously. In August, 9,715 claims were processed versus 8,088 in July, a 20% increase.

The backlog is now almost exactly where it was at the time last year. At the end of August 2018, it stood at 17,513.

The latest complete statistics from OPM 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
Aug-19 8,878 9,715 17,576 50 56
           

About the Author

Ian Smith is one of the co-founders of FedSmith.com. He has over 20 years of combined experience in media and government services, having worked at two government contracting firms and an online news and web development company prior to his current role at FedSmith.