Federal Employees Were Paid $9.5 Billion Not to Work in 2025 Under DOGE Effort
As part of the Department of Government Efficiency’s program to shrink the federal work force, paid administrative leave costs rose by 435 percent.
Last year, the federal government spent approximately $9.5 billion on paying employees to remain on administrative leave through a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative, according to a new Government Accountability Office report. The initiative aimed to reduce the federal workforce by offering federal workers the option to resign while continuing to receive full pay and benefits until the end of September.
The report revealed that the use of paid administrative leave surged 435% from 2023 to 2025, with salary costs increasing sixfold. Around 70% of the 2025 total cost was attributed to the deferred resignation program associated with DOGE. The GAO analyzed payroll data from 76 agencies, representing approximately 95% of the civilian federal workforce.
The Trump Administration's deferred resignation program allowed around 2 million federal workers to choose to resign while continuing to receive full pay and benefits. As of January 2025, 139,963 federal employees left through this program. The initiative was part of the Trump Administration's broader campaign to cut what it perceived as wasteful federal spending.
While the program was intended to save the federal government billions, a separate review by GAO found that some estimates of the claimed savings were incorrect or unsupported. The DOGE initiative officially shut down in July 2025, after the Office of Personnel Management absorbed most of its functions. Nevertheless, federal data showed a net decline of 271,363 civilian federal employees between President Donald Trump's inauguration and July of the following year.
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