Federal employees were paid nearly $7B not to work under DOGE effort: GAO

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White House Headlines - September 16, 2026

White House Headlines - September 16, 2026

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.

Federal workers’ use of paid leave increased 435 percent under the first two years of the Trump administration, a dynamic the Government Accountability Office (GAO) attributed to the deferred resignation program that paid the salary of workers for the rest of the fiscal year if they accepted a buyout.

Modeled after a plan used by onetime White House adviser Elon Musk after he purchased the social platform X — formerly........

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