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Revolutionizing Federal Retirement: OPM's New Online System
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May 16, 2025
Discover the latest update from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM)! This week, OPM announced the launch of a brand-new online retirement processing system that will be implemented across the entire government. This has the potential to be a game changer for processing federal employees' retirement applications. Learn all the key details about this groundbreaking development in our video. Related Articles OPM Goes Digital: A New Era for Federal Retirement Processing https://www.fedsmith.com/2025/05/07/opm-goes-digital-new-era-for-federal-retirement-processing/ OPM’s Retirement Modernization Process Achieves Important Milestones https://www.fedsmith.com/2025/05/06/opms-retirement-modernization-process-achieves-important-milestones/ Chapters 0:00 Introduction 0:17 OPM's Big Announcement 1:41 Collaborative Effort Between OPM and DOGE 2:07 Historical Significance of New System 4:21 Significance for Federal Employees 7:38 Conclusion
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the office of personnel management made
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a big announcement this week because it
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has the potential to really be a
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gamecher for federal employees who are
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going to be retiring in the near future
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let's get into the details hello and
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welcome everyone i'm ian smith with
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fedsmith.com thank you for joining me
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today so what is this big news i was
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teasing the office of personnel
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management announced on may 7th that it
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has developed in conjunction with doge
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or the department of government
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efficiency an online processing system
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for its retirement applications so it's
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going to scrap the old manual paperbased
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system federal employees retirement
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applications will now be processed
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completely online and that's going to
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take effect on june 2nd opm will no
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longer accept paperbased applications
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starting on that date they have to be
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submitted completely digitally in fact
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opm said
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thatum any newly created paper
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retirement packages will not be accepted
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and will be sent back to the agency for
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digital
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resubmission again starting on june 2nd
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i'm not going to get into tons of
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details about the memo this was uh all
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of this was contained in a memo sent by
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opm acting director charles ezel to
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agency heads um if you want some more
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details i go into them in an article i
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wrote about this i'll include a link to
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it in the description so this is a big
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deal uh opm has been working on this as
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i said and it's happened in astounding
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amount of time very quickly at least i
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think it's astonishing and in a moment
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i'll i'll get into why i think it's it's
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so surprising this effort has been done
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in collaboration between opm's uh
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retirement services team and doge the
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department of government efficiency
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airbnb co-founder joe gabia joined doge
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and he took the lead on this project and
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he told fox news back in march quote
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"this will be an online digital process
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that will take just a few days at most
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it's an injustice to civil servants who
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are subjected to these processes." as i
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mentioned i was stunned at how quickly
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this has been done it's been done in a
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matter of months as far as i know from
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the information opm has released and the
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milestones they've achieved that they've
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announced along the way and the reason
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is because opm has tried a few times in
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the past to modernize the retirement
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processing system and failed and it it
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went on over decades in some cases their
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efforts actually date back to the 80s
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around the time when furs the federal
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employees retirement system was first
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launched by congress but a 2012 gao
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government accountability office report
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um outlines and describes the history of
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opm's efforts to modernize its
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retirement processing system and these
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are a few highlights from that report
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i'll just go through quickly the fur's
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automated processing system initiated in
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1987 was terminated in 1996 due to
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management weaknesses and lack of
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progress then after that the retirement
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systems modernization rsm program
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planned from 1997 to 2001 changed
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direction in 2001 before
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implementation in 2006 opm award awarded
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contracts for rsm for automating the
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retirement process including converting
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paper records to electronic files in
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2008 opm renamed the project the retire
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ez e the letter e letter z retire ez
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program but it terminated the contractor
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due to problems and was eventually
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eventually terminated the entire program
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in 2011 compare all of that to
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2025 opm announced in late february that
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it had successfully processed its first
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retirement application completely online
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and it did so in less than a week on may
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2nd joe gabilla announced that 25
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federal employees were retiring through
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a process conducted fully online just 5
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days later opm is now rolling the entire
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thing out governmentwide really just in
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a matter of months it seems they've
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gotten this done whereas with past
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efforts it goes back decades and if it
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all goes well and works as described
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this has the potential to be a big
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gamecher for federal employees because
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as i said the current system is really
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slow according to opm's own estimates
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from its retirement quick guide the
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current wait time for federal employees
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to get their full annuity payments is 3
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to five months so meaning if you were to
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retire
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now you're going to be waiting 3 to five
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months for your application to be fully
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processed on average some of our readers
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have told us in comments that it's taken
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over a year for them to have their
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retirement
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applications fully processed the current
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system is also prone to errors and that
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adds to delays opm for instance warns
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federal employees in one of its faqs on
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retirement about the need for having a
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healthy retirement application which is
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one that is free from errors and has all
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the necessary information it says in
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that faq quote "you can help reduce
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delays in processing by submitting your
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application in advance and by making
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sure your official personnel folder is
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complete if you submit your paperwork
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early your personnel and payroll offices
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will be able to complete their action
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before your retirement date so the
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current process involves a number of
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different stakeholders the federal
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employees themselves personnel offices
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payroll offices
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opm it's a it's a slow complex process
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and also it the current process has
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created a backlog of these retirement
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applications as well if you read
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articles on the fedsmith.com website
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you've probably seen the ones that i
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write each month i've been doing it for
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a number of years now highlighting the
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status of the opm retirement backlog and
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how much it grows or shrinks on a
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month-to-month basis as of the end of
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april the current backlog is
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16,173 retirement claims that may sound
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like a lot but it's actually been a lot
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higher it's been over 60,000 that was
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back in january of
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2012 and that year it was it was quite
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high there were several months it was
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over
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40,000 opm steadystate goal they call it
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is
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13,000 and that's only been achieved a
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few times the last time it hit that
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level was in
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2015 but the current backlog all things
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considered is is actually pretty good
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because over the last uh year or so
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opium has has really done a good job of
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reducing it but point being the current
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system results in this ongoing backlog
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of retirement
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claims and presumably this backlog would
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go away if this new online system works
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as it's expected if the retirement
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processing is moved entirely online is a
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success and it's permanently adopted
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then i would assume this this current
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backlog of the paperbased claims in the
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old system would be gone within a few
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months but uh if you contrast all of
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that with descriptions that have been in
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the media with this new system it's
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night and day um a white house official
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for instance told fox news back in april
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that the new system could process a
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federal employees retirement application
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in less than one second so if it works
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as expected that's quite quite a change
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from 3 to 5 months so like i said this
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is a gamecher and i hope it's a success
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because that's going to be good news for
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you all for federal employees if you're
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going to be retiring soon you won't have
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to wait nearly as long to get your full
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annuity payments we'll see how it goes
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uh hopefully it'll be a success like i
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said and um and again this is coming uh
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june 2nd thank you for watching and
8:00
listening i hope you found this helpful
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be sure to like and subscribe check out
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our other videos and also be sure to
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visit fedsmith.com for more of our news
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articles have a good day
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