The OPM retirement backlog was reduced by over 3,700 claims in March, further helping it recover from the spike in the number of new retirements that came in during January. The agency also recently made an important breakthrough that could change the way it processes retirement claims.
The Office of Personnel Management received 7,803 claims in March and processed 11,559. This reduced the backlog from 20,550 to 16,794, a 17% reduction.
The average monthly processing time increased slightly from February. It took 50 days on average in March to process claims, whereas it was 44 days in February.
Despite the 68% increase in the retirement backlog in January, OPM appears to be heading in the right direction to keep it from getting too unwieldy as the year goes on.
However, January – March are the annual “surge period” for new retirement claims, so OPM beefs up its processing staff during that time. The pace of processing the new applications is likely to drop off as the year goes on and that is what has typically happened in past years based on the agency’s data. However, the number of new incoming retirement claims usually drops off throughout the year as well.
The table below tells the story. Except for 2022 and 2021, the average number of claims processed for the rest of the year was lower than in the first quarter since 2020.
| Q1 Claims Received (Avg) | Q1 Claims Processed (Avg) | Rest of Year Claims Received (Avg) | Rest of Year Claims Processed (Avg) | |
| 2025 | 11,180 | 10,208 | ? | ? |
| 2024 | 9,911 | 9,067 | 6,491 | 6,819 |
| 2023 | 10,107 | 9,664 | 6,495 | 7,454 |
| 2022 | 11,850 | 8,643 | 7,474 | 9,114 |
| 2021 | 10,336 | 7,776 | 8,188 | 8,259 |
| 2020 | 10,991 | 9,539 | 6,568 | 6,744 |
Modernizing OPM’s Retirement Processing System
Retired federal employees are undoubtedly aware of the delays that can arise while waiting for OPM to process their retirement applications. Much of this is due to the outmoded nature of the system.
The agency currently processes retirement applications by hand, using reams of paper files stored in a limestone mine near Boyers, PA. The mine is known as Iron Mountain and began to be used as a secure records storage facility in the 1950s during the Cold War based on the idea that it offered “bomb-resistant storage.”
The retirement application processing takes months but can even take upwards of a year, and comments we have seen in the past from some of our readers have said that they have had to wait over a year to get their full retirement annuity payments. This archaic process is what has caused the notorious backlog of retirement claims that are always present at the agency.
OPM’s unusual retirement processing procedures recently drew national attention when Elon Musk highlighted the unusual process in his work with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Musk told reporters, “…we’re told the most number of people that could retire possibly in a month is 10,000. We’re like, well, what? Why is that? Well, because all the retirement paperwork is manual on paper. It’s manually calculated and written down on a piece of paper. Then it goes down to mine and like, what do you mean, a mine?”
OPM is aware of the problems with the outdated system and has made efforts in the last few years to improve the process.
The agency launched its Retirement Quick Guide in 2023 to help federal employees better understand what to expect after they submit their retirement applications and how long the process is estimated to take. It also highlights common mistakes that are likely to slow down the process, such as ensuring all paperwork is there and that all forms have been signed. Missing signatures are among the most common errors that create processing delays for OPM.
The agency has tried and failed in the past to modernize its retirement processing system. In 2008, OPM announced the RetireEZ program that was supposed to modernize the process. Two years and millions of dollars later, it was cancelled due to problems with the contractor.
Shortly after that, it tried another modernization project that also didn’t go so well.
However, OPM announced last year that it was developing and testing a new online retirement applications processing system. The tests included a pilot program at several agencies. OPM’s chief information officer told Federal News Network that it was going to take “many years” for the agency to modernize the system but that it was using a “small bite” approach in which it didn’t try to solve all the current system’s problems in one fell swoop.
However, on February 27, the agency announced that it has successfully completed the task of processing a federal retiree completely digitally without using any paper, and it was able to do this inside of one week.
OPM Acting Director Chuck Ezell made the announcement in a video on X. He said, “…the [Trump] administration came to us with a challenge, something that we’ve never done before: process a retiree, end to end, digitally, without printing anything to paper. The deadline? In a week.”
The video goes on to say that the OPM Retirement Services team was able to complete the task in just two days.
What This Means for Federal Employees
The achievement bodes well for federal employees because the introduction of a digital processing system that takes days instead of months or years to process retirement applications would dramatically speed up the waiting period for new retirees to get their full annuity payments.
When federal employees first submit their retirement applications, they get what are known as “interim” annuity payments until OPM fully finishes the processing. These payments represent a portion of the final annuity payment, so retirees are left without their full retirement income until OPM can get the process completed.
As Matt MacIsaac, Deputy Associate Director for Retirement Operations at OPM, said in the video, “We’ve proved that it’s possible, and now we are going to figure it out and we are going to get this done for everybody else too.”
Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia, who has a role working with DOGE, recently told Fox News that he plans to turn OPM’s current retirement processing system into one that takes only a few days.
Gebbia said, “This will be an online digital process that will take just a few days at most… it’s an injustice to civil servants who are subjected to these processes.”
He added, “We really believe that the government can have an Apple-like store experience. Beautifully designed, great user experience, modern systems.”
Update: Fox News reported on April 9 that another step has been taken as part of this process. OPM will be posting an updated Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) which is the first step in the process of developing and using artificial intelligence to modernize the retirement processing system. The updated PIA will allow for system testing to be done on actual data rather than just in a test environment.
Fox News states, “While there is no intention to digitize or remove the hundreds of millions of files that exist in the mine, the AI system would ensure that no new paper files would be added to the already overwhelming number of physical copies that exist.”
It added that successful implementation of the AI system could take the processing time down to one second or less to process a federal employee’s retirement.
OPM Retirement Processing Status: March 2025
| 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-23 | 6,924 | 6,098 | 16,678 | 73 | 73 |
| Nov-23 | 5,207 | 6,059 | 15,826 | 66 | 69 |
| Dec-23 | 5,662 | 7,196 | 14,292 | 68 | 69 |
| Jan-24 | 12,997 | 6,467 | 20,822 | 66 | 68 |
| Feb-24 | 8,794 | 10,025 | 19,591 | 47 | 62 |
| Mar-24 | 7,943 | 10,711 | 16,823 | 55 | 61 |
| Apr-24 | 6,901 | 7,647 | 16,077 | 61 | 61 |
| May-24 | 6,751 | 8,793 | 14,035 | 60 | 61 |
| Jun-24 | 6,919 | 5,614 | 15,340 | 64 | 61 |
| Jul-24 | 6,451 | 5,994 | 15,797 | 65 | 61 |
| Aug-24 | 7,083 | 7,702 | 15,178 | 64 | 61 |
| Sep-24 | 5,618 | 6,302 | 14,494 | 63 | 62 |
| Oct-24 | 6,872 | 6,458 | 14,908 | 62 | 62 |
| Nov-24 | 6,808 | 7,872 | 13,844 | 55 | 58 |
| Dec-24 | 5,020 | 4,988 | 13,876 | 57 | 58 |
| Jan-25 | 16,101 | 6,700 | 23,277 | 64 | 60 |
| Feb-25 | 9,637 | 12,364 | 20,550 | 44 | 55 |
| *Mar-25 | 7,803 | 11,559 | 16,794 | 50 | 54 |
Disability determinations are included in the pending number after approval. Average Processing Time in Days represents the number of days starting when OPM receives the retirement application through final adjudication.
*Initial retirement cases produced in less than 60 days, on average took 33 days to complete; whereas cases that were produced in more than 60 days, on average, took 142 days to complete
