February was a calmer than usual month for incoming retirement applications at the Office of Personnel Management according to the agency’s latest retirement status report.
In fact, February 2021 had the fewest new retirement applications in the last 6 years. OPM received 7,495 new retirement claims last month, 20% fewer than February 2020. There have been times when February topped five figures in terms of new retirement claims so this is a much lower number than in recent years.
OPM also processed 8,003 retirement claims in February which helped the backlog to come down just a bit from its typical surge in January. However, the total backlog is still quite large, now standing at 26,460.
If that number sounds high, it is – it is the largest total backlog figure since at least February 2015; however, the backlog has been over 20,000 at the end of each February since 2015.
OPM’s stated goal for the backlog is 13,000, a figure not seen since December 2015 when it closed out that year at 11,399 total retirement claims in the backlog.
The latest complete retirement processing 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-19 | 7,044 | 6,538 | 17,882 | 59 | 59 |
| Nov-19 | 7,822 | 7,314 | 18,390 | 62 | 61 |
| Dec-19 | 5,205 | 6,687 | 16,908 | 66 | 62 |
| Jan-20 | 17,134 | 10,059 | 23,983 | 58 | 61 |
| Feb-20 | 9,273 | 9,627 | 23,629 | 54 | 59 |
| Mar-20 | 6,566 | 8,931 | 21,264 | 61 | 60 |
| Apr-20 | 6,740 | 8,115 | 19,889 | 68 | 61 |
| May-20 | 6,648 | 8,360 | 18,177 | 83 | 64 |
| Jun-20 | 6,555 | 7,300 | 17,432 | 81 | 65 |
| Jul-20 | 6,819 | 6,620 | 17,631 | 95 | 68 |
| Aug-20 | 6,775 | 5,836 | 18,570 | 73 | 68 |
| Sep-20 | 6,244 | 6,540 | 18,274 | 73 | 69 |
| Oct-20 | 8,323 | 6,992 | 19,605 | 77 | 77 |
| Nov-20 | 5,876 | 5,459 | 20,022 | 74 | 76 |
| Dec-20 | 5,135 | 5,470 | 19,687 | 74 | 75 |
| Jan-21 | 13,850 | 6,569 | 26,968 | 85 | 78 |
| *Feb-21 | 7,495 | 8,003 | 26,460 | 77 | 78 |
retirement application through final adjudication.
*Initial retirement cases produced in less than 60 days, on average took 45 days to complete; whereas cases that were produced in more than 60 days, on average, took 102 days to complete.
