GAO report shows how use paid administrative leave rose by 435% from 2023 to 2025 and incurred a sixfold cost The US government paid federal workers $9.5bn not to work in 2025 as part of the Trump administration ’s attempts to shrink the federal…
The Trump administration paid outgoing employees an estimated nearly $7 billion to not work as it encouraged them to leave the federal service, a government watchdog found in a Tuesday report.
The federal workforce shrunk by roughly 216,000 workers in 2025, according to federal data.
As part of the Department of Government Efficiency’s program to shrink the federal work force, paid administrative leave costs rose by 435 percent.
