The Veterans Benefits Administration posted its second week in a row of growth in backlogged disability claims, saying in its weekly progress report that claims older than 125 days grew by nearly 11,000 last week.
What had been smooth progress against the huge backlog that began in mid-summer 2013 reversed in November and for the rest of the year see-sawed between the positive and negative, based on the weekly “Monday Morning Work Workload Reports.”
Despite some backsliding since Thanksgiving, there was overall substantial improvement in the past year, with about 23% fewer claims pending overall and more than a third fewer waiting over 125 days. The percentage taking over 125 days had been cut by 11 percentage points.
Weekly progress since mid-summer
Below is our weekly snapshot of claims status and two graphics from the Veterans Benefits Administration’s weekly “Monday Morning Workload Reports” that track claims processing progress.
| CLAIMS PENDING | OVER 125 DAYS | % OVER 125 DAYS | AVG. DAYS PENDING | |
| This week | 636,274 | 388,178 | 61.00% | 175.7 |
| Last week | 636,029 | 377,409 | 59.30% | 173.8 |
| Change | 245 | 10,769 | 1.70% | 1.9 |
| Year ago | 823,140 | 574,838 | 69.80% | N/A |