The OPM retirement backlog took a rather sharp climb in July 2021 to wind up at its second highest level for the year.
It’s high for the year so far was in March when it peaked at 27,368.
July closed with a backlog of 27,001 total retirement claims, an 8% increase over June. The increase appears to be due to a couple of factors: nearly 9,000 new claims came in during July and OPM only processed 6,920. It also did so at a slower rate than in previous months with the monthly average processing time taking 91 days in July.
From a recent historical perspective, July tends to be a fairly popular time for federal employees to retire. Data from the last few years show that it has been one of the busier months for OPM in terms of new incoming claims. Here are the figures going back to 2014:
| July 2021 | 8,922 |
| July 2020 | 6,819 |
| July 2019 | 8,000 |
| July 2018 | 8,281 |
| July 2017 | 10,070 |
| July 2016 | 9,238 |
| July 2015 | 9,862 |
| July 2014 | 9,101 |
| Average | 8,787 |
As can be seen, this July’s number of new retirement claims is actually one of the lower figures for the past few years.
OPM Retirement Processing Status – July 2021
| 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 |
| Mar-21 | 9,664 | 8,756 | 27,368 | 69 | 76 |
| Apr-21 | 9,414 | 11,396 | 25,386 | 71 | 75 |
| May-21 | 7,684 | 8,451 | 24,619 | 70 | 74 |
| Jun-21 | 7,264 | 6,884 | 24,999 | 78 | 75 |
| *Jul-21 | 8,922 | 6,920 | 27,001 | 91 | 76 |
*Initial retirement cases produced in less than 60 days, on average took 44 days to complete; whereas cases that were produced in more than 60 days, on average, took 107 days to complete.
