Federal Retirement Service Performance: How Agency Customer Experience Varies

When federal employees retire, they must navigate three distinct agencies: the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Retirement Services, the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) administered by the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, and the Social Security Administration (SSA). Each agency’s customer-service record reflects its mission and operating model. OPM converts retirement applications into annuity payments, TSP handles account-based transactions, and SSA provides benefits to more than 71 million retirees and other beneficiaries.

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• TSP: In February 2026 the ThriftLine received roughly 200,000 calls, with an average wait of 11 seconds; 95 % of callers waited 20 seconds or less. Participant satisfaction exceeded 93 % for the 12th straight month. Mobile-app logins rose to 4 million in April 2026 (42 % of all TSP logins, up from 32 % a year earlier). In April, participants completed nearly 7,000 Roth in-plan conversions worth about $135 million.

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• SSA: The agency served 68 million callers in fiscal 2025—a 65 % increase from fiscal 2024. Online and telephone channels handled most contacts, saving an estimated 14.2 million public hours by May 2026 (7.6 million via online services, 4.9 million via the National 800 Number, 1.7 million via field offices). Average speed of answer fell from 13 minutes in October 2024 to 7 minutes by September 2025, though queue-wait times for callers who stayed on hold peaked at 1 hour 40 minutes in January 2025.

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• OPM: Retirement-services staffing shrank 16 % from fiscal 2024 to fiscal 2026 after a historic surge in retirements in 2025. Backlog and processing-time metrics remain the most visible pain point for retirees awaiting annuity calculations.

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TSP’s narrow, account-centric mission yields consistently short call times and high satisfaction. SSA’s broader mandate produces longer waits, especially for callers who forgo callbacks; the agency’s reported “average speed of answer” can understate actual hold times because callbacks are counted as zero wait. OPM’s delays directly affect retirees’ monthly income, making its backlog the most consequential for federal annuitants despite smaller call-center volumes.

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Federal employees approaching retirement should submit paperwork early, exploit digital tools such as the TSP mobile app and SSA’s “my Social Security” portal, and monitor account status before separation. Setting realistic expectations about possible wait times—particularly with OPM annuity processing—can help mitigate anxiety during the transition to retirement.

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