Federal agencies paid workers $9.5 billion in 2025 to stay off the job, according to a new government watchdog report.
Quick Take
- The Government Accountability Office (GAO) found agencies spent $9.5 billion on paid administrative leave in 2025.
- $6.7 billion of that total went to employees in the deferred resignation program tied to President Trump’s workforce cuts.
- The federal workforce shrank by roughly 216,000 workers during the year.
- Paid leave spending jumped 435% compared to two years earlier.
The Watchdog’s Bottom Line
The Government Accountability Office released its report detailing how much the federal government paid workers to sit idle in 2025. The total came to $9.5 billion, spent while President Trump pushed to shrink the size of the federal bureaucracy.
Of that sum, $6.7 billion covered employees enrolled in the deferred resignation program, a plan built to encourage voluntary departures across agencies.
The federal government paid federal workers $9.5 billion not to work in 2025 amid President Trump's push to shrink the federal workforce, according to a new watchdog report. https://t.co/kzhI8kB8gA
— ABC News (@ABC) September 16, 2026
Inside the Deferred Resignation Deal
The program, nicknamed “Fork in the Road,” let federal workers agree to resign or retire by September 30, 2025. In exchange, they got placed on paid administrative leave, keeping their salary and benefits until their official departure date.
Nearly 144,000 employees accepted the offer in just the first half of the year, and most of them stayed on the payroll well into fall or winter before finally leaving.
Critics and defenders of the program have argued over what to call it. Some employment lawyers pushed back on the word “buyout,” noting there was no guaranteed payment beyond the promise of paid leave status for up to eight months. That distinction matters, because it shaped how workers weighed the offer before signing on.
A Shrinking Workforce, A Growing Price Tag
The federal workforce dropped by about 216,000 employees over the course of 2025 as the deferred resignation program and other separations took hold.
Broader counts that include every major agency put the net decline closer to 256,000 workers, an 11.3% drop, once hiring is factored against departures.
Separately, the Office of Personnel Management has said roughly 317,000 federal employees left government service entirely during the year.
Why the Bill Grew So Fast
Paid administrative leave use across government rose 435% compared to two years earlier, according to the watchdog’s findings.
The Government Accountability Office also cautioned that the Office of Personnel Management does not have a full accounting of the actual costs tied to paid leave used for workforce reduction, meaning the $9.5 billion figure could shift as more data comes in.
That uncertainty does not erase the scale of what already happened. Nearly $10 billion moved out the door in a single year to cover salaries for people who were not actively working, a fact the report itself lays out in plain terms.
Downsizing Has Always Carried a Price Tag
Federal downsizing has followed this pattern before. Government Accountability Office reports from the 1990s show that buyout programs, offering payments up to $25,000, helped shrink the workforce by more than 230,000 employees between 1993 and 1996.
Those same reports warned that rushed downsizing without careful planning could leave agencies short-staffed and stretched thin. The 2025 numbers suggest that same tradeoff between quick cuts and short-term cost is playing out again on a much larger scale.
For taxpayers watching the bottom line, the math is straightforward. Shrinking the government cost billions upfront before any long-term savings show up in the budget. Whether that tradeoff pays off will depend on what agencies do with a smaller, restructured workforce in the years ahead.
Sources:
abcnews.com, fedweek.com, fedsmith.com, thecentersquare.com, federalnewsnetwork.com, defensescoop.com
