In what is often a slower time of year for new retirement claims, the Office of Personnel Management saw its retirement backlog grow in November.
The backlog went from 17,882 to 18,390, a 2.84% increase. This came thanks to 7,822 new claims coming in during November, considerably higher than the 7,044 from October and also almost 5% higher than November 2018.
OPM processed more claims in November than it did the previous month but it did so on a slightly slower pace, 62 days on average versus 59 days in October.
The latest complete data 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-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 | 46 | 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 |
| Sep-19 | 7,456 | 7,656 | 17,376 | 57 | 56 |
| Oct-19 | 7,044 | 6,538 | 17,882 | 59 | 59 |
| Nov-19 | 7,822 | 7,314 | 18,390 | 62 | 61 |
*Disability determinations are only included in the pending number after approval.
**Pending retirement cases produced in less than 60 days, on average took 36 days to complete; whereas cases that were produced in more than 60 days, on average, took 130 days to complete.
