Trump celebrates milestone in serving U.S. veterans
FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—For the first time in nearly six years, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced that the backlog of disability compensation and pension benefit claims is consistently below 100,000.
The VA has not reached this milestone since May 2020. It reported an average backlog of more than 200,000 claims from 2021 to 2024.
“Under President [Donald] Trump, VA is providing veterans, families, caregivers, and survivors all of the benefits they have earned as quickly and conveniently as possible,” Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins said.
The department has now cut the backlog of veterans waiting for VA benefits by 63% since Jan. 20, 2025, after it increased 24% under the Biden administration, according to a news release obtained by The Daily Signal.
“VA’s claims processing productivity is the highest it has ever been, and we look forward to continuing to provide record levels of service to Veterans and VA beneficiaries,” Collins said.
A VA claim for compensation or pension is considered backlogged once it has been pending in the claims inventory for more than 125 days.
In 2013, a record 70% of claims were older than 125 days, compared to just 17% on Monday.
Collins has made reducing the claims backlog a priority as VA secretary.
During Trump’s first administration, the VA reached the lowest disability claims backlog of 64,783 claims on Dec. 21, 2019.
[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]