0:00
OPM's retirement claims backlog grew by
0:03
40% in November, and it went up even
0:05
more than that the month prior. So,
0:07
what's going on? It's unusual to see the
0:11
retirement claims backlog spike this
0:13
much this time of year. Normally, only
0:15
see that in January when you have a
0:18
large number of federal employees
0:19
retiring at the end of the year. Let's
0:21
take a look at the numbers.
0:24
Office of Personnel Management Director
0:26
Scott Cooper said in a interview a few
0:29
months ago that he was projecting about
0:31
300,000 federal employees to leave
0:33
federal service by the end of the year.
0:36
And I think we're starting to see the
0:39
results of the Trump administration's
0:41
efforts to cut the total size of the
0:43
federal workforce showing up in these
0:45
figures in the the total inventory of
0:47
retirement claims at the Office of
0:49
Personnel Management in terms of the
0:51
number of claims coming in. OPM's
0:54
processing a lot of them too. It's just
0:55
that they're coming in faster than the
0:57
agency can handle. And so that's what's
0:59
pushing the backlog higher. But um
1:02
Cooper had projected that about 300,000
1:05
federal employees would leave by the end
1:07
of the year as I said and that would
1:10
shrink the total size of the federal
1:11
workforce from about 2.4 million down to
1:17
And um the deferred resignation program
1:20
is a big driver of all this. You'll
1:22
remember that back in January uh the
1:25
Trump administration put that offer on
1:26
the table. It was basically a buyout
1:29
offer for federal employees to leave
1:31
their jobs and keep getting their pay
1:33
and benefits through the end of the
1:35
fiscal year, excuse me, which was uh the
1:38
end of September. Now that September's
1:41
come and gone, we're starting to see
1:43
those figures really hit the uh total
1:45
retirement claims inventory. Also of
1:47
interest in the November uh data on the
1:51
retirement stats that OPM has put out,
1:53
they've started sharing numbers on the
1:57
digital retirement claims processing and
1:59
this ties into the online retirement
2:02
application or OR for short that OPM
2:04
launched over the summer. In July, the
2:07
agency started requiring all retirement
2:09
applications to now be digital
2:13
and they've started publishing figures
2:15
on the number of claims they've had come
2:17
in, the number they process, how long
2:19
it's taking. So, it's it's interesting
2:21
to look at those figures. Um, I've got a
2:24
table here I I'll put up on the screen
2:27
that goes into some details. These are
2:29
figures OPM released. I added in um I
2:32
broke out the number of paper claims
2:34
just just so it make it more clear. So
2:37
you see that in October there were 6,176
2:40
digital claims that came in versus
2:45
of paper. That's retirement claims under
2:48
the old system. That number went up even
2:50
higher in uh November on the digital
2:54
Paper went up as well, but the total
2:57
claims coming in in November were quite
2:58
a bit higher than in October. As you can
3:01
see, the big statistic here on the
3:03
digital claims processing versus the
3:05
paper on the old system. OPM said that
3:09
the digital claims in November were
3:11
processed in 38 days on average versus
3:14
94 days for the paper. So, it's nearly
3:17
three times longer for the paper claims.
3:20
That's a huge difference obviously. And
3:23
you can see in the figures here that it
3:24
is generally faster for OPM to process
3:27
the digital claims. It'll be interesting
3:28
to see if that trend continues and and
3:31
how this uh this goes in the future
3:33
because so far OPM has only shared these
3:36
two months worth of data. Obviously, the
3:38
digital system is new. There's not going
3:40
to be a lot to share at this point, but
3:42
I'll be curious to see going forward
3:44
what kind of impact it has on the
3:46
processing times. Again, so far the
3:48
figures are encouraging and that would
3:51
be helpful for federal employees because
3:53
that means they can start getting their
3:55
full annuity payments more quickly if
3:57
the uh the process is sped up.
4:01
And taking a look at the the total
4:03
inventory numbers here, as I said,
4:06
November really saw a big increase. The
4:08
the total backlog went up 40% over
4:12
October. It now stands at 48,396
4:16
total retirement claims outstanding. And
4:20
in these figures I'll put up on the
4:24
I did an analysis of November over the
4:26
last few years. November 2025, I mean,
4:29
there's no comparison. It's it's far and
4:31
away ahead of the month of November for
4:34
the last several years. And again, I
4:36
think that's being driven by the number
4:37
of federal employees leaving, probably
4:41
largely due to the deferred resignation
4:43
program. The October backlog had a big
4:46
increase as well. It um it stood at
4:51
total retirement claims, and that was a
4:53
47% increase over September. But as high
4:56
as um the total backlog is now at just
5:00
shy of 50,000, that's not an all-time
5:03
record. It's the highest it's been since
5:07
but it has in 2012 it actually topped
5:12
So, we're not into all-time record
5:14
territory yet. But January is normally
5:17
the busiest time of year for OPM in
5:21
terms of having retirements come in
5:22
because most federal employees tend to
5:24
retire at the end of a calendar year.
5:26
So, presumably January is going to be
5:31
So, it will be interesting to see how
5:33
things fare. With any luck, OPM will see
5:37
some reprieve in December. Maybe they'll
5:39
be able to process more retirements
5:42
during the month of December, if not as
5:44
many come in. And if the the the pace of
5:48
processing the digital claims in
5:49
particular, if that continues to
5:51
accelerate, that would certainly help
5:52
the process as well and hopefully bring
5:55
the total inventory down somewhat in
5:58
advance of January because again,
6:01
typically January is just the biggest
6:03
month of the year. Plus, since more
6:06
people have been leaving the government
6:07
than usual because of the efforts to
6:10
reduce the size of the workforce,
6:12
I'm expecting January to be pretty big,
6:16
maybe bigger than it usually is. I'll be
6:18
interesting to see how it shakes out.
6:20
But I've written an article on this on
6:22
the fedsmith.com website that goes into
6:24
some more detail. I just wanted to kind
6:26
of give you the highle overview here on
6:28
the numbers in this video, but I'll
6:30
leave a link to that in the description.
6:32
So, be sure to check it out. Have a
6:34
merry Christmas everyone.
