Paid To Quit? Bill Explodes Overnight

Hands burning cash over a small fire at night — Photo: Dmitry Zhukovich / Shutterstock

Taxpayers spent an estimated $9.5 billion paying federal workers not to work in 2025, most of it tied to a planned downsizing push.

Story Snapshot

Government Accountability Office estimated $9.5 billion in paid administrative leave in 2025, six times 2023.
About $6.7 billion linked to the Deferred Resignation Program used in workforce cuts.
Paid leave days jumped to about 21.6 million in 2025 from roughly 4–4.4 million earlier.
Office of Personnel Management defended the costs as a one-time trade for future annual savings.

What the watchdog found and why it matters

The Government Accountability Office reported a surge in paid administrative leave costs for 2025, estimating a total of $9.5 billion across the agencies it reviewed. That figure represents a sixfold increase over 2023, with reporting describing the rise as about 435 percent. The number of paid leave workdays also spiked to about 21.6 million in 2025, up from roughly 4 million in 2023 and 4.4 million in 2024. The jump aligned with a federal push to shrink headcount and reorganize operations.

About $6.7 billion of the total was tied to the Deferred Resignation Program, which let employees set a future resignation date and, in many cases, stop reporting to work in the meantime. Coverage of the Government Accountability Office findings states that roughly 70 percent of the 2025 paid administrative leave fell into this category. The arrangement moved people off active duty but kept them on payroll until their exit date. That choice created predictable, front-loaded costs as thousands departed in waves.

How the program worked inside federal rules

The Office of Personnel Management guidance described how agencies could accept a deferred resignation and place the employee on administrative leave until the set date. Additional Office of Personnel Management materials explained that the usual 10-day cap on administrative leave does not apply to this program’s management action, which cleared the path for longer paid absences. That framework explains why leave days multiplied in 2025 once many workers took the offer. The mechanism was legal within policy and built to move people out fast.

Federal leave rules give agencies discretion to use administrative leave for management needs, but they also bar using it as a reward or perk. The Deferred Resignation Program sat in the management bucket, not the reward bucket, which is why it could run at scale. When mass exits hit at once, gaps appear before backfills or reorganizations land. Agencies often choose paid leave to avoid idle time at desks, preserve order during downsizing, and reduce conflict over assignments that will soon vanish.

The bill now versus the savings later

Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupper defended the 2025 expense as a one-time cost to secure a smaller workforce, paired with projected annual taxpayer savings of $40 billion going forward. That claim fits a long pattern in government: pay upfront to change, then save each year from a leaner staff and simpler org charts. The Government Accountability Office, however, flagged that the Office of Personnel Management did not know the exact actual costs beyond estimates, which limits precision in the tally.

The Trump administration spent approximately $9.5 billion on paid administrative leave in 2025. Federal spending is up despite DOGE gutting all of our critical departments and agencies. Keep telling yourself this administration is doing anything other than fumbling the ball.

— Ryan Osbahr (@ryanosbahr1) September 18, 2026

Conservatives will look at $9.5 billion and ask a plain question: did this buy permanent savings that dwarf the bill? If agencies truly shed roles, consolidate layers, and stop backfilling, then the math can work. If they rehire back to baseline or shuffle boxes without cutting functions, taxpayers got the cost without the payoff. Common sense says track the headcount and the payroll two years out. If they fall and stay down, this was a necessary bridge. If not, it was waste with a fancy label.