The federal government spent an estimated $9.5 billion paying employees to not work last year, with most of the cost tied to a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative to shrink the federal workforce, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office.
The report, published Tuesday, found that the use of paid administrative leave increased 435% from 2023 to 2025, while associated salary costs rose sixfold. GAO estimated that $6.7 billion—around 70% of the 2025 total—was associated with the Administration’s deferred resignation program. The congressional watchdog analyzed payroll data from 76 agencies representing around 95% of the civilian federal workforce.
In January 2025, the Trump Administration offered roughly 2 million federal workers the option to resign while continuing to receive full pay and benefits through Sept. 30. The government-wide offer was meant to encourage voluntary departures under an arrangement known as deferred resignation. The Office of Personnel Management directed agencies to place employees who accepted the offer on paid administrative leave until their departure. Some agencies later conducted additional deferred resignation programs.
According to federal workforce data, 139,963 federal employees left the government through deferred resignation programs.
The initiative was part of the Trump Administration’s broader campaign under DOGE to cut what it saw as wasteful federal spending. Tech billionaire Elon Musk, who became the public face of DOGE before leaving the Administration in May 2025, initially promised to save the federal government $2 trillion, before lowering the target to $1 trillion. DOGE’s website ultimately claimed $215 billion in estimated savings. That figure has not been independently confirmed. In a separate review of $110 billion in claimed savings, GAO found that some estimates were incorrect or unsupported. (DOGE officially shut down in July, after OPM absorbed most of its functions in November.)
Federal data showed a net decline of 271,363 civilian federal employees—around 12% of the federal workforce—between President Donald Trump’s inauguration and July this year.
Those reductions were not uniform across agencies. Between December 2024 and January 2026, the largest decline was at USAID, where the workforce fell 95%, according to a separate GAO analysis. Staffing declined 46% at the Education Department, 37% at the General Services Administration, 34% at OPM, 33% at the National Science Foundation, and 31% at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The Department of Homeland Security, by contrast, reduced its workforce by less than 1%.
Some agencies later had to replace workers they paid to leave. The Partnership for Public Service identified 20,557 hires by June 2026 in the same types of roles as employees who left through deferred resignation.
OPM Director Scott Kupor defended the program’s economics in a letter responding to the GAO report. Kupor said OPM expects the workforce reductions to save $20 billion per year, while the $6.7 billion was a one-time cost.
“This distinction is crucial: The savings recur every year, while the administrative leave costs with the DRP were incurred once,” Kupor said.
The Trump Administration has pursued other efforts to reduce the federal government. Trump imposed a government-wide civilian hiring freeze on his first day in office and subsequently directed agencies to hire no more than one person for every four departures, except for positions of national security, immigration enforcement, and other priorities. Agencies were also directed to review whether probationary employees should be retained, prepare plans for large scale layoffs, and consider eliminating positions and functions not required by law.
The government has faced extensive litigation over its workforce cuts. In September 2025, a federal judge ruled that OPM had exceeded its authority by directing agencies to fire thousands of probationary workers, although the judge did not order their reinstatement. Separately, the Supreme Court stayed a lower court injunction in July 2025, allowing agencies to move forward with layoffs while litigation continued. Litigation has since shifted to challenges to individual agency layoff plans.
Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston ruled that a DHS plan to cut staffing at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) by 50% was unlawful.
During the October 2025 government shutdown, the Trump Administration took the unprecedented step of threatening permanent cuts, using the funding lapse to accelerate its government downsizing campaign. Federal agencies issued layoff notices to around 4,100 employees and the Administration warned that more than 10,000 jobs could be eliminated. Congress ultimately nullified those layoffs by statute when the shutdown ended in November, and required agencies reinstate employees and provide back pay.
On Tuesday, Sen. Patty Murray (D, Wash.), the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, accused the Administration of wasting money while weakening public services.
“Trump spent billions to push out experienced and badly needed experts across government,” Murray said. “This was the most expensive way imaginable to make government worse.”
