Miami
U.S. government spent $9.5 billion on paid leave in 2025 amid federal workforce cuts
A GAO report tied most of the increase to the deferred resignation program used to shrink the federal workforce. The Office of Personnel Management defended the cost as a one-time expense with long-term savings.
The Trump administration spent $9.5 billion on paid administrative leave in 2025, a figure six times higher than in 2023 as it pushed to reduce the federal workforce, according to a Government Accountability Office report published this week and cited by CBS News Miami.
The report said use of paid administrative leave rose 435% from 2023 to 2025. GAO estimated that $6.7 billion of the total was linked to the Deferred Resignation Program, the federal employee buyout initiative launched as part of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, effort to shrink government.
The program was run by the Office of Personnel Management in January 2025 and allowed participating employees to resign or stop working while continuing to receive pay through Sept. 30, 2025. GAO estimated that 144,312 employees accepted the offer, below the administration’s projection of 200,000.
The report also said paid administrative leave peaked in July 2025, when 2.5 million of the 3 million leave workdays reported that month were tied to the deferred resignation program. By comparison, salary costs for administrative leave in 2023 and 2024 combined totaled $3.2 billion.
Scott Kupor, director of the Office of Personnel Management, said in a statement cited by CBS News Miami that the report did not adequately distinguish between a one-time $9.5 billion cost to reduce the federal government by 270,000 employees and the $40 billion in yearly taxpayer savings he said that reduction would produce. He described that as a 400% return on investment.
GAO said, however, that it faced limitations in the data reported by agencies and that OPM does not know the actual cost of paid administrative leave used for workforce reduction because leave tied to the program was grouped into broader administrative leave totals. The watchdog also said it could not determine whether the program’s long-term savings goals had been met.
It recommended that OPM improve transparency around the data and create a separate category for paid administrative leave used in workforce reduction efforts. According to OPM data cited by CBS News Miami, 271,000 employees have left the federal government since Trump began his term in January 2025.
CBS News Miami also noted that DOGE had claimed on its Wall of Receipts webpage that its actions had cut $110 billion in federal spending through reductions in contracts, leases and grants. But a separate GAO report released last month found that figure was inflated and said DOGE had not been transparent about its methodology, with 96% of the claimed savings lacking enough information for verification.
Sources
About this piece. Written by El Notero with AI assistance, from reporting published by the outlet cited above. El Notero did no original reporting on this story.
