New retirees awaiting full benefits may face holiday heartache as the backlog swelled to nearly 50,000 by the end of November.
Tom Hanks, playing Jim Lovell in Apollo 13, used this modified version of the astronaut’s famous quote, “Houston, we have a problem!” I wonder if these words have been spoken at the Office of Personnel Management’s Retirement Operations Center in Boyers, Pa., where an astounding 43,737 applications arrived by mail, FedEx or electronic ORA system from federal agencies across the country and around the world during October and November.
In comparison, in the same two months of 2024, OPM received only 13,680 applications for processing. At the end of November 2024, OPM had an inventory of 13,844 retirement applications waiting for final processing. At the end of November 2025, OPM had an inventory of 48,396 retirement applications (both paper and digital) awaiting final processing.
