Trump Administration Spent at Least $11 Billion Paying Federal Workers Not to Work

(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

The nonprofit consumer advocacy organization, Public Citizen, dug through publicly available data from the federal Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and found that Elon Musk and President Donald Trump’s DOGE cuts resulted in federal employees being paid “at least $11 billion – and likely much more – not to work.”

The group did a deep dive study into the cost of Trump’s federal employment cuts and noted that the “total reflects only the lower end of estimated costs for the Deferred Resignation Program (DRP) – inspired by Elon Musk in the Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM’s) infamous “Fork in the Road” email, and it does not look at other federal efforts to reduce the number of federal workers.”

Musk’s DRP refers to the 139,628 federal employees who took an offer from DOGE to resign their jobs in early January of 2025 but still get paid through October. The report added:

A second DRP offer, known as DRP 2.0, began in April 2025 and paid employees through September 30, 2025, unless they planned to retire by the end of the year and could then be paid up until December 31, 2025, when they separated from federal service. The result was that nearly 140,000 federal workers were paid not to work for weeks or, in most cases, months.

Based on OPM data, Public Citizen estimates that paying federal employees in the DRP not to work cost between $11.1 billion and $15.1 billion through March 2026, the last month OPM posted publicly available data.

Musk’s DOGE program has long been derided as both ineffective and dangerous, as it not only did not result in less government spending but also served to push out key employees. Many critics have long pointed out that the best employees would be likely to be first to leave under DOGE’s offer, as they could easily find new jobs and earn double income. DOGE cuts impacted everyone from the workers guarding the U.S. nuclear arsenal to air traffic controllers, many of whom ended up being urgently hired back.

In April of 2025, the Partnership for Public Service (PSP) released a report finding that while DOGE claimed it saved $160 billion in waste and fraud, it cost taxpayers some $135 billion in additional costs. CBS News reported on the finding at the time, noting the $135 billion figure didn’t include DOGE “defending multiple lawsuits challenging DOGE’s actions, nor the impact of estimated lost tax collections due to staff cuts at the IRS.”

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