Details: In a Pennsylvania limestone mine located 230 feet underground, more than 700 workers manage federal retirement paperwork, dealing with around 10,000 applications every month. Utilizing a manual system that has remained unchanged since 1977, the processing of each application takes a minimum of 61 days.
Significance: The obsolete paper-based process hampers federal retirement processing to only 10,000 employees a month, resulting in substantial delays in benefit disbursements. Any interruption, like the mine's elevator breaking down, brings retirement processing to a halt.