VA Says Disability and Pension Claims Backlog Now Under 100,000

The Department of Veterans Affairs announced that its backlog of disability compensation and pension claims — those pending more than 125 days — is now "consistently" below 100,000 for the first time since May 2020, citing record processing productivity under President Trump’s second term. VA Secretary Doug Collins said the backlog has fallen about 63% from roughly 264,700 cases when Trump returned to office in January 2025, after rising during the Biden years, and noted that only about 17% of pending claims are now older than 125 days compared with 70% in 2013. The agency points to overtime, staffing and systems changes that carried over from the PACT Act surge as drivers of faster decisions, though the article does not provide independent verification beyond VA’s own numbers. Officials link the improvement to broader Trump‑era VA initiatives they say include more than 30 new health facilities opened and over 50,000 homeless veterans housed in FY 2025, while critics on social media are already questioning whether lower backlogs are coming at the expense of accuracy or higher denial rates. For veterans and their families, the new benchmark means shorter average waits for initial benefits decisions, but the real measure will be whether these gains hold and how many decisions survive appeal.