Federal Employees Were Paid Almost $10 Billion Not to Work Thanks to DOGE: Report

(AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Federal employees were paid nearly $10 billion not to work thanks to an offer made by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in its effort to slash spending.

The Government Accountability Office released a report on Tuesday showing that $9.5 billion was paid in administrative leave last year. Deferred resignations helped feed a 435% increase in administrative leave being used from 2023 to 2025.

“GAO’s review of payroll data found that federal agencies’ use of paid administrative leave increased by 435 percent from 2023 to 2025. GAO estimates federal agencies in our review spent $9.5 billion in salary costs on paid administrative leave in 2025, a sixfold increase from 2023,” the report reads.

Federal workers had been offered in a January 2025 email the ability to resign within nine days and be paid through September. Approximately $6.7 billion of the $9.5 billion spent can be traced back to these deferred resignation deals. Workers had been told in the email that they were likely to lose their jobs in the end anyway amid federal cuts.

“Using program assumptions and internal time and attendance data provided by payroll service providers, GAO calculated about $6.7 billion of that amount was associated with deferred resignation program,” the report reads.

The federal work force has shrunk 12% in Trump’s second term. About 140,000 workers took the deferred resignation deal. More than 300,000 lost their jobs amid cuts by DOGE, overseen initially by billionaire Elon Musk and his team.

“After promising to cut waste, Trump instead set billions upon billions in taxpayer dollars on fire to quite literally pay people not to do jobs they loved—from researching cancer cures to taking care of our National Parks, and so much else,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said in a statement about the new report.

She added, “Trump spent billions to push out experienced and badly needed experts across government—this was the most expensive way imaginable to make government worse. Seniors, veterans, and families will wait longer for the help they count on for years to come, all thanks to Trump’s reckless mass firing campaign, which was endorsed by Republicans in Congress who cheered these cuts and refused to join Democrats to put a stop to it.”

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