The federal government expended $9.5 billion in compensation to employees who were not performing work during 2025, a consequence of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiatives.
According to reporting by The New York Times, which references a recent assessment from the Government Accountability Office, DOGE’s deferred resignations initiative resulted in a 435 percent expansion of paid administrative leave throughout 2025. This represents an escalation exceeding six-fold compared to 2023 levels.
12 percent reduction in the federal workforce
Since the presidential inauguration in January of the preceding year, President Donald Trump and Musk’s initiatives have resulted in a 12 percent reduction in the federal workforce. However, this workforce contraction has failed to generate corresponding financial savings.
Although the Trump administration asserts that governmental expenditures have been reduced by more than $200 billion, such claims remain unsubstantiated. Similarly, the federal deficit has experienced a substantial increase, primarily attributable to military expenditures related to the Iran conflict and the Republican tax reduction legislation enacted during the previous fiscal year.
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$6.7 billion was allocated to DOGE
From the $9.5 billion allocation, $6.7 billion was allocated toward DOGE’s deferred resignation initiative, which approximately 139,963 federal employees accepted, leading to significant personnel losses of experienced staff across multiple government agencies. Several departments undertook extensive recruitment efforts to restore their workforce.
According to a research conducted by The Partnership for Public Service, an independent nonprofit entity, approximately 20,000 federal positions vacated through the resignation program have been filled. The federal government has additionally pursued recruitment strategies targeting new personnel to address staffing shortages, with particular emphasis on candidates in the early stages of their careers.
“Trump spent billions to push out experienced and badly needed experts across government — this was the most expensive way imaginable to make government worse,” stated Democratic Senator Patty Murray in a statement Tuesday.
What was DOGE’s objective?
The DOGE was established with the objective of diminishing the scale of federal administration and eradicating inefficiencies, fraudulent activities, and misconduct, with projections indicating potential savings of $1 trillion. However, the initiative appears to have become a substantial demonstration of fiscal mismanagement and wasteful expenditure of public funds.
