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Well, everyone, I'm Ian Smith here with
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fedsmith.com. I wanted to bring you an
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update today on the OPM retirement
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backlog. The latest figures for March
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2026 just came out, and after hitting an
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all-time record high in February, it has
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reversed course in March and has come
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back down pretty significantly,
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actually. So, let's dig into the
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numbers. Now, there are a lot of numbers
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in going through all this. I'm not going
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to get really deep and heavy into all
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the details, but I have written an
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and it's published on fedsmith.com. I'll
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be sure to leave a link in the
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description to that if you'd like to dig
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into the numbers a little bit further.
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But, in today's video, I'm going to just
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try to touch on the high points and give
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you a broad overview of the current
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situation. I'm going to put this table
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up here on the screen for you to give
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you an overview. This shows the trending
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in the OPM retirement backlog for the
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first half of fiscal year 2026.
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We're now halfway through the
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government's fiscal year. And if that
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sounds kind of weird to you and think,
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just remember that the fiscal year
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doesn't run concurrent with the calendar
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year. It starts in October. So, as in
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the end of March, we're now 6 months
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through the fiscal year." And as you can
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see, the retirement backlog really
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spiked significantly. February 2026, as
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I said, was at an all-time high of
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claims, but you see in March, it dropped
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by about 15%, and it ended at 50 5,681.
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And the reason it dropped so much is
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because OPM processed 22,237
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cases in March, more than double what
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they processed in October and November.
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So, while the numbers did decrease
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significantly in March, it is
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we have to keep it in perspective cuz it
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is still pretty high. And while the
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trend has reversed, and that is good. In
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the retirement backlog has been
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increasing every month since since
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September. So, this is the first month
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since last fall that it has finally
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Uh it is still extremely high though by
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historical standards. So, just for
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example, as you saw in the table, in
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the backlog was only 34,587.
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So, 28% lower just 6 months ago. And a
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year ago, in March 2025, at the end of
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March, the inventory was 16,794.
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That was 70% lower than it is
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uh as of the end of March 2026. So, a
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And that's sort of become the new normal
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here in the last, at least for the the
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government's current fiscal year, is
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these really high numbers in incoming
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retirement claims. And that, of course,
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is being driven by the large number of
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federal employees who've left the
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federal workforce um throughout 2025,
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primarily. In fact, OPM reported that
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federal employees have left since
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Obviously, that's very unusual. And
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in years prior to that, the federal
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workforce was growing, not not shrinking
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so much. So, that's why we have this
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anomaly in these these numbers. And a
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big factor that's driving this uh
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decline in the numbers in March is the
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growing number of digital retirement
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OPM transitioned to its online
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retirement application, or ORA for
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And as the agency is transitioning more
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and more towards making all retirement
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what we're seeing is that more and more
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of the incoming claims are digital, and
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they are in fact being processed much
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more quickly, and that's having a very
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positive impact in the situation.
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Here are some of the highlights for
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Um in January, there were 9,394
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digital claims received. That's incoming
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retirement claims, which is 50% of the
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In February, there were 15,494
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digital claims received, also 50% of the
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But, in March, it actually went up to
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60%, 8,830 total. And so, as the number
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of digital claims is growing, that means
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faster processing times. So, that's a
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quick overview of the current situation
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with the OPM retirement processing
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backlog. Like I said, I didn't want to
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get really deep into the numbers. If
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you're a numbers person and you like a
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lot of detail, I have gone into much
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more detail on some of the numbers in
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the article I wrote. And again, I will
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leave that in the description. But, just
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to quickly recap again, March reversed a
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6-month trend of the retirement backlog
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growing, and it uh shrank by about 15%
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last month total. And that was largely a
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result of the digital retirement claims,
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the the share of incoming claims being
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processed digitally rather than the
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old-style paper claims, which are much
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In fact, OPM has reported that the
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digital claims are processed in about
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half the time. So, it does make a
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significant difference when you look at
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I hope you found this video helpful
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today. Thank you for watching, and we'll
