A Government Accountability Office review has put a large number on one part of the Trump administration’s 2025 effort to shrink the federal workforce. Agencies in the GAO review spent an estimated $9.5 billion in salary costs on paid administrative leave during 2025, about six times the 2023 level. GAO estimates roughly $6.7 billion of that total was associated with the deferred resignation program, the initiative that allowed participating federal employees to stop working while continuing to receive pay until their resignation or retirement date.
The Washington Examiner and Newsmax both reported the watchdog’s findings. The program was part of the broader workforce-reduction effort associated with the Department of Government Efficiency and the Office of Personnel Management’s ‘Fork in the Road’ offer. Nearly 140,000 workers accepted the buyout offer, and the federal workforce shrank significantly during 2025. The administration has argued that the upfront cost should be measured against recurring payroll savings from a smaller workforce.
The $9.5 billion figure needs an important qualification. It is not the amount GAO says DOGE itself spent, and it is not all attributable to the deferred resignation program. GAO estimated $6.7 billion of the total was associated with deferred resignations. The remainder reflects other forms of paid administrative leave across the agencies included in the review. That distinction matters because the larger headline number can easily be misread as a direct bill for the buyout program alone.
GAO also warned that the underlying leave data contain quality problems that could overstate usage. The watchdog found examples of holiday leave being reported as paid administrative leave and said the Office of Personnel Management does not fully disclose known data limitations. That means the $9.5 billion should be treated as GAO’s estimate based on available payroll records, not as an audited invoice with no uncertainty around it.
Even with those caveats, the increase was substantial. GAO found paid administrative leave usage rose 435% from 2023 to 2025. The number of employees reporting very long periods of administrative leave also increased dramatically during the year the deferred resignation program was operating. That is consistent with how the program was designed. Employees who accepted could be placed on leave and continue receiving salary until their separation date.
The administration’s argument is that a one-time transition cost can still produce long-term savings. Washington Examiner reporting notes that the White House says the deferred resignation program is saving roughly $40 billion annually in payroll expenses. That claim is a projection from the administration and should be treated as such. GAO’s report focused on the cost of paid leave and data quality, not on a complete lifetime cost-benefit analysis of every federal workforce reduction.
The policy question is therefore more complicated than saying the government paid people not to work. It did pay employees on administrative leave, and a large share of the cost was tied to a program that allowed people to stop working before their formal departure. But the purpose was to reduce headcount over time. Evaluating whether the policy saved money requires comparing the transition cost with the salaries, benefits, contracting costs and rehiring needs that followed. The report also raises a management question separate from the political fight over DOGE. Administrative leave is designed for situations in which employees remain on the payroll but are excused from normal duties. Using that tool for a large workforce-reduction program transformed a mechanism usually associated with temporary personnel situations into a major transition policy. GAO’s finding that almost 100,000 employees recorded more than 90 workdays of administrative leave in 2025 shows how unusual the year became compared with 2023 and 2024. That does not by itself prove the program was wasteful, because the cost was part of a deliberate strategy to accelerate departures. It does mean that any claim of savings has to account for the period during which employees were still being paid after their day-to-day work had ended.
The economic consequences also depend on what happens next rather than on the first public threat. Tariffs can be announced, delayed, narrowed or used as leverage in negotiations. Canada and the EU can likewise adjust the scope of their discussions. That flexibility is why the phrase associate member matters politically even before it is legally defined. It creates a framework for future cooperation and a test of how aggressively Washington will respond when two close U.S. partners try to reduce their exposure to American policy swings.
The immediate facts are clear enough to support scrutiny without overstating what remains unknown. The next phase will produce more documents, votes, legal decisions or economic data that can test the competing claims. Until then, the distinction between what has happened and what each side predicts will happen is central to covering the story accurately. Congress will also need to compare the reduction in employee headcount with any later use of contractors or rehiring. A smaller payroll can save money, but savings can shrink if agencies replace departed expertise through more expensive outside contracts or bring workers back into hard-to-fill roles. GAO’s leave estimate is one part of that larger balance sheet.
The GAO report gives Congress a clearer starting point for that evaluation. It documents a large short-term cost and flags weaknesses in the data used to measure it. What it does not settle is whether the workforce reduction produced enough durable savings to justify that cost. That is the number the administration and its critics will now argue over.
If a workforce-reduction program costs billions upfront but promises larger savings later, what evidence should determine when the government can credibly call it an efficiency gain?
Sources
Washington Examiner: DOGE’s ‘Fork in the road’ buyouts cost government nearly $7 billion: Watchdog – https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/white-house/4729534/doge-buyouts-cost-government-billions-gao-report/
Newsmax: Trump’s Workforce Buyouts Cost Feds $6.7 Billion – https://cloudflarepoc.newsmax.com/newsfront/buyouts-gao-report/2026/09/16/id/1269629/
