The use of paid administrative leave as part of the Trump administration’s deferred resignation program, an effort to entice federal workers to quit, across government in 2025 was 435% higher than two years prior, according to a new GAO report.
The federal government spent nearly $10 billion placing more than 100,000 federal workers on paid administrative leave for extended periods last year, a sixfold increase from two years prior driven largely by the Trump administration’s deferred resignation program aimed at encouraging feds to quit public service.
A new report from the Government Accountability Office found that around 70% of that money, or $6.7 billion went to feds who opted into the DRP, a program by which agencies paid employees to stay home, in exchange for their resignation by September 2025—or December of that year, for retirement-eligible workers. While federal employees took 4 million workdays worth of leave in 2023 and 4.4 million in 2024, that number ballooned to 21.6 million workdays last year.
“Paid administrative leave usage peaked in July 2025 at nearly 3 million workdays; approximately 2.5 million of those workdays were associated with the deferred resignation program,” GAO wrote. “In 2023 and 2024, fewer than 600 federal employees took more than 90 workdays of paid administrative leave; in 2025, almost 100,000 employees took more than 90 days of paid administrative leave.”
The deferred resignation program came shortly after the Office of Personnel Management issued long-awaited regulations implementing the 2016 Administrative Leave Act, a law aimed at curbing the use of paid administrative leave.
OPM told agencies that those regulations would not take effect until September 2025, and later proposed a new rule codifying workforce realignment as a valid use of paid leave. OPM’s current guidance for agencies considering a deferred resignation program is to cap the period of paid administrative leave at 12 weeks.
GAO noted that its estimates regarding the costs of leave approved in connection with the deferred resignation program and other workforce restructuring efforts are likely a modest overcount. That’s because employees commonly misreport similar forms of paid time off, such as for a federal holiday or a doctor’s appointment, as well as the fact that OPM has not set up a dedicated leave category for leave connected to a workforce restructuring effort.
That means policymakers can’t know whether the Trump administration’s workforce reductions are actually reducing the cost of government, the report found. OPM Director Scott Kupor has previously said the DRP would save taxpayers $20 billion each year.
“To calculate the long-term government-wide savings of workforce reduction efforts, OPM needs to know the short-term costs of using paid administrative leave,” GAO wrote. “[Without] an accurate understanding of how much paid administrative leave costs the federal government, there is no way to accurately determine to what extent the government-wide cost-savings goal is being met. OPM officials stated that they have no plans to create an additional subcategory of paid administrative leave associated with workforce reductions.”
GAO recommended the OPM acknowledge the data reliability issues inherent in its public-facing paid leave data, as well as create a new category in federal payroll systems to report workforce-reduction related paid leave. In its response, the dedicated HR agency reversed course and said it would begin the process of creating a new leave category to better track the usage of and reasoning for paid leave.
“OPM agrees that a dedicated administrative leave data element for workforce reduction efforts would enable more timely reporting on its use and simplify future analysis,” Kupor wrote. “OPM will begin the process of developing a new paid administrative leave category focused on workforce reduction efforts, in coordination with agencies and payroll service providers.”
If you have a tip that can contribute to our reporting, Erich Wagner can be securely contacted at ewagner.47 on Signal.
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Facts Only
* Agencies spent nearly $10 billion on paid administrative leave in 2025.
* More than 100,000 federal workers were placed on paid administrative leave for extended periods in 2025.
* Paid administrative leave usage was 435% higher than two years prior.
* $6.7 billion was spent on feds who opted into the DRP (Deferred Resignation Program).
* The DRP involved agencies paying employees to stay home until September 2025 or December for retirement-eligible workers.
* Federal employees took 21.6 million workdays of leave in 2025, compared to 4 million in 2023 and 4.4 million in 2024.
* Paid administrative leave usage peaked in July 2025 at nearly 3 million workdays; approximately 2.5 million of those were associated with the deferred resignation program.
* Fewer than 600 federal employees took more than 90 days of paid administrative leave in 2023 and 2024, but almost 100,000 employees took more than 90 days of paid administrative leave in 2025.
* OPM guidance for agencies considering a deferred resignation program caps the period of paid administrative leave at 12 weeks.
* The GAO estimated costs regarding workforce reduction efforts are likely an overcount due to misreporting and lack of dedicated categories.
Executive Summary
Agencies spent nearly $10 billion placing over 100,000 federal workers on paid administrative leave across government in 2025. This usage was 435% higher than two years prior, driven by the Trump administration’s deferred resignation program intended to encourage federal workers to quit. Approximately $6.7 billion of that expenditure went to federal employees who opted into the Deferred Resignation Program (DRP), where agencies paid employees to stay home until September 2025 (or December for retirement-eligible workers). Federal employee leave usage increased significantly, rising from 4 million workdays in 2023 and 4.4 million in 2024 to 21.6 million workdays in 2025.
The deferred resignation program followed regulations implementing the 2016 Administrative Leave Act, which aimed to restrict paid administrative leave. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) initially indicated that the regulations would not take effect until September 2025 and proposed a guideline capping paid administrative leave at 12 weeks.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) noted that estimates regarding costs related to the DRP and workforce restructuring efforts likely overcounted expenses because employees often misreport time off and OPM lacked a dedicated category for leave related to workforce restructuring. This lack of categorization prevents accurate assessment of government-wide cost savings related to workforce reduction goals, as policymakers could not accurately measure the short-term costs of administrative leave. In response, the GAO recommended that OPM acknowledge data reliability issues and create a new category in federal payroll systems to track workforce-reduction related paid leave. OPM agreed to begin developing a new category for this purpose, coordinated with agencies and service providers.
Full Take
The narrative surrounding government workforce reduction, structured through incentive programs like the DRP, reveals a tension between cost-saving goals and accurate data collection. The pattern emerges that large-scale administrative measures, when framed as voluntary choices for employees, mask underlying fiscal realities because of systemic data gaps. The initial motivation—reducing costs—is complicated by the methodology used to track these costs; the reliance on existing time-off reporting mechanisms creates a significant blind spot regarding actual government savings.
The shift recommended by the GAO—creating a dedicated payroll category for workforce reduction leave—points toward a necessary structural recognition that tracking the short-term expense of restructuring is prerequisite to achieving long-term fiscal targets. This suggests an inherent tension where policy implementation prioritizes the stated goal (cost reduction) over epistemological soundness (accurate measurement). The subsequent agreement by OPM to create a new category demonstrates an acknowledgement that transparency requires operational change, rather than just informational updates.
This situation implies a structural challenge in how public administration measures productivity and cost. When an incentive program intentionally directs large-scale leave, the resulting financial data must be disaggregated from routine leave to assess true economic impact. The focus shifts from mere expenditure reporting to establishing epistemological frameworks for tracking policy outcomes reliably. What is the long-term consequence of prioritizing immediate operational flexibility over rigorously defined metrics for workforce management? What systems are in place to ensure that cost-saving initiatives do not inadvertently obscure or inflate the actual financial footprint of administrative decisions?