Federal retirement goes digital, wait times slashed from months to days

Federal retirement processing is finally stepping into the modern era. After decades of bureaucratic inefficiency, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have announced a complete overhaul of the system. Starting June 2, 2025, the outdated paper-based process will be replaced with a fully digital alternative, cutting wait times for retirement checks from three to five months down to less than one month. For 35 years, federal retirement applications were processed manually in an underground limestone mine in Boyers, Pennsylvania, where 700 workers shuffled through 26,000 file cabinets filled with paper records. This archaic...