DOGE caused government to pay $9.5B to federal workers not to work

Federal workers were paid $9.5 billion not to work during the DOGE-led drive to shrink the government, according to a congressional watchdog.

The Government Accountability Office found paid administrative surged 435 percent from 2023 to 2025, with as much as $6.7 billion of that associated with the administration’s deferred resignation program.

​The DRP, a key feature of the DOGE-led crackdown, involved a January 2025 offer by the Trump administration to around 2 million federal workers.

Employees were given the option to resign while receiving full pay and benefits until September 30 that year. Some 139,963 people took up the offer, data shows.

​The report, published Tuesday, analyzed payroll data from 76 agencies, representing around 95 percent of the federal workforce.

​Senator Patty Murray, vice-chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, tore into the Trump administration in a statement addressing the report’s findings.

​“After promising to cut waste, Trump instead set billions upon billions in taxpayer dollars on fire to quite literally pay people not to do jobs they loved - from researching cancer cures to taking care of our National Parks, and so much else,” she said.

“Trump spent billions to push out experienced and badly needed experts across government - this was the most expensive way imaginable to make government worse.”

The Office of Personnel Management criticized the GAO’s findings in a statement to The Independent.

“The GAO report fails to highlight the difference between a one-time expense ($9.5 billion) to reduce the size of the federal government by 270,000 employees and the $40 billion per year savings in taxpayer dollars that this reduction provides,” a spokesperson said.

“That 400% return on investment is a massive benefit to the taxpayer.”

​Slashing the size of the federal government was one of Trump’s key policies when running for president in 2024, backed by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.

​When Trump took office, Musk became the de facto head of DOGE - an acronym that stands for Department of Government Efficiency, but shares a name with Musk’s favored meme-based cryptocurrency.

​​The department officially shut down in July, with its de facto leader infamously leaving the Trump administration a year earlier amid rumors of a feud with the president.

The official DOGE website estimates that around $215 billion has been saved overall through its efforts.