Here’s what happened.
President Donald Trump’s government-efficiency push is facing fresh scrutiny after a federal watchdog revealed that agencies spent billions of dollars paying employees who were placed on administrative leave during a major effort to reduce the federal workforce.
The Government Accountability Office reported that federal agencies spent an estimated $9.5 billion on paid administrative leave in 2025, roughly six times the amount spent in 2023.
GAO estimated that approximately $6.7 billion of that total was associated with the Trump administration’s Deferred Resignation Program, which allowed participating federal employees to stop performing their regular duties while continuing to receive pay until their departure date.
The findings are renewing a fundamental debate over DOGE and its legacy: Did the administration spend billions upfront to produce greater long-term savings, or did the workforce reduction effort cost taxpayers more than anticipated?
Federal Paid Leave Costs Surged
The scale of the increase was substantial.
According to GAO, the use of paid administrative leave across the agencies it reviewed rose 435 percent between 2023 and 2025.
Employees participating in the Deferred Resignation Program could remain on paid administrative leave for months before formally leaving government service. Some eligible workers could receive administrative leave throughout May, June, July, August and most of September 2025.
That arrangement was part of the Trump administration’s broader attempt to reduce the size and cost of the federal workforce.
Supporters of the effort argue that temporarily paying departing employees can still save taxpayers money if those positions disappear permanently.
Critics argue that the true calculation is more complicated.
Did Taxpayers Save Money?
That question sits at the heart of the controversy.
The immediate expense of paying employees who were no longer performing their normal duties appears significant. But administration officials have argued that those costs should be weighed against future payroll savings produced by a smaller government workforce.
In other words, a temporary expense could theoretically produce years of recurring savings if enough positions remain eliminated.
Critics counter that any serious accounting should also consider the cost of replacing employees, training new workers, contracting out government functions and losing experienced personnel.
Those competing calculations make the ultimate financial effect of DOGE’s workforce reductions difficult to determine from the administrative-leave numbers alone.
GAO Identified Problems With The Government’s Data
There is another important limitation.
GAO found problems with the federal government’s administrative-leave records that could cause the reported totals to overstate how much leave employees actually used.
For example, agencies sometimes reported holidays as administrative leave even though holidays should not have been counted that way.
GAO therefore described the multibillion-dollar figures as estimates rather than an exact accounting of every dollar spent.
The watchdog recommended that the Office of Personnel Management publicly disclose unresolved reliability problems with its data.
GAO also recommended establishing a separate reporting category specifically for administrative leave connected with workforce reductions.
Both recommendations remain open.
DOGE Savings Claims Also Faced Scrutiny
The workforce findings are not the first time DOGE’s numbers have drawn examination from federal auditors.
A separate GAO report released in August reviewed DOGE’s public “Wall of Receipts,” where the organization listed savings it said resulted from canceled or modified federal contracts, grants and leases.
As of July 7, 2026, DOGE reported approximately $110 billion in savings from those areas.
GAO found that some estimates were incorrect or did not contain enough supporting information for auditors to verify them.
One of the most notable findings involved federal grants.
GAO said DOGE failed to provide sufficient information for auditors to verify the methodology used to calculate 96 percent of the grant savings DOGE reported.
Auditors also discovered that some lease cancellations credited to DOGE were already underway before the organization was established.
Of 264 leases listed for termination, 108 were already in the process of being eliminated before DOGE began operating, according to GAO.
That does not mean every savings figure reported by DOGE was invalid. It does mean federal auditors concluded that weaknesses in documentation and methodology made portions of the publicly reported savings difficult to independently verify.
A Bigger Debate Over Government Efficiency
DOGE became one of the most visible parts of Trump’s effort to reshape the federal government.
Its mission centered on reducing spending, shrinking bureaucracy and identifying government programs or positions that the administration viewed as unnecessary.
That approach won support from Americans who have long argued that Washington spends too much money and employs too many people.
At the same time, opponents questioned whether rapid reductions could eliminate valuable employees, disrupt federal services or produce unexpected costs.
The new GAO findings give both sides additional numbers to debate.
The administration can point to the potential for recurring payroll savings from a smaller workforce.
Critics can point to billions of dollars spent on employees who temporarily remained on the payroll without performing their regular duties.
The $6.7 Billion Question
For taxpayers, the most important issue is not simply how much money was spent during the downsizing effort.
It is what taxpayers ultimately received in return.
If permanently eliminating positions produces tens of billions of dollars in future savings, the temporary cost of the resignation program could eventually represent a relatively small portion of those savings.
If agencies are forced to replace large numbers of departing workers, hire contractors or absorb other new expenses, the financial benefit could be considerably smaller.
GAO has not concluded that DOGE’s broader workforce strategy either succeeded or failed financially.
What the watchdog has established is that paid administrative leave costs increased dramatically during the federal downsizing campaign—and that the government’s current data systems make calculating the precise long-term savings more difficult.
DOGE’s Legacy Remains Under Examination
The debate surrounding DOGE ultimately comes down to a familiar Washington question: Did reducing the size of government actually reduce the cost of government?
Supporters argue that the true savings will become clearer over time as lower payroll expenses accumulate.
Critics argue that taxpayers deserve a complete accounting that includes every expense associated with workforce reductions—not merely the salaries removed from government payrolls.
With GAO calling for greater transparency and better tracking, DOGE’s impact on federal spending is likely to remain under congressional and public scrutiny.
For taxpayers, the final judgment may depend on something straightforward: whether the government can eventually demonstrate, with reliable numbers, that the savings exceeded the costs.