Taxpayers are still paying $1.6 million a week to keep 420 radio staffers out of work

Over a year after the Trump administration ended Voice of America, the U.S. international broadcaster, the agency continues to cost taxpayers millions of dollars even though it has ceased operations. Voice of America, one of six entities under the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM), is a digital news outlet that reaches over 361 million people in 49 languages.

In March 2025, President Trump ordered the dismantling of VOA and USAGM due to financial concerns. However, as of July 2026, approximately 420 former VOA employees were still on paid administrative leave, costing taxpayers an estimated $1.6 million per week, or $82.8 million annually, according to a report by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG).

The OIG found that USAGM did not adequately evaluate the impact of losing experienced personnel on their operations. For instance, they failed to consider the significance of technical facilities and support staff when deciding which employees to place on administrative leave. Moreover, the OIG discovered that USAGM had not verified 99% of the documentation related to the disposal of broadcasting equipment, infrastructure, and property, reducing transparency in property and lease management activities and risking the loss or mismanagement of agency assets.

Furthermore, the OIG noted that USAGM could not demonstrate how the reductions in operations affected their credibility, which had resulted in service lapses in digital production and broadcasts, significantly impacting U.S. priorities. In November 2024, a former news correspondent, Dan Robinson, criticized VOA as a "rogue operation" with a leftist bias. Following this comment, Trump signed an executive order in March 2025 to eliminate nonstatutory functions and reduce operations to the minimum required by law.

Subsequently, USAGM placed 994 of its 1,147 federal employees on administrative leave, terminated 594 of its 602 contract workers, and halted broadcasting, the first time since World War II. However, in March 2026, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth ruled Trump's actions unlawful, ordering more than 1,000 employees back to work. Lamberth stated that the administration had taken drastic action without considering the agency's required functions, harming employees, contractors, journalists, and media consumers globally.