Veteran Affairs building near the White House in Washington, Feb. 14, 2018. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) 14 Jun 2021 The Department of Veterans Affairs is chipping away at a disability claims backlog that ballooned during the pandemic, but it doesn't expect to achieve pre-pandemic levels until late next year, officials said last week. Part of the strategy includes providing staff to support records retrieval and digitization, as well as paying for overtime at the National Archives and Records Administration, according to the VA. Of roughly 520,000 pending VA claims for disability compensation and benefits, 191,000 are considered to be backlogged, or older than 125 days. While the number is down by roughly 10% from earlier this year, it far exceeds the 77,000 cases that were considered backlogged in March 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic struck.