A sixfold cost increase with an incomplete price tag
GAO estimated that reviewed federal agencies recorded $9.5 billion in salary costs for paid administrative leave in 2025, six times the 2023 amount. Using program assumptions and payroll-provider data, GAO attributed about $6.7 billion—70.5%—to the deferred-resignation program.
Leave usage rose 435% from 2023 to 2025. Yet the Office of Personnel Management could not directly identify actual workforce-reduction leave costs because the payroll system mixed them with other administrative leave.
| Measure | Amount/change | Newsroom calculation |
|---|---|---|
| Estimated salary cost | $9.5 billion | Sixfold 2023 level |
| Deferred-resignation estimate | $6.7 billion | 70.5% of total |
| Use growth, 2023–25 | +435% | GAO payroll analysis |
| Holiday-period reporting spike | +144% | Potential overstatement signal |
Holiday pay contaminated the measure
Agencies reported 144% more paid administrative leave in pay periods containing a public holiday from 2023 through early 2025. Holidays should not have been recorded as administrative leave, and GAO warned that this could overstate usage.
OPM issued guidance but did not plan to retroactively fix historical public data. That means the $9.5 billion is GAO’s estimate built around known limitations, not a precise invoice that can be assigned to individual employees.
Savings claims need both short-term and long-term numbers
The deferred-resignation program allowed employees who agreed to leave to stop working while receiving pay through September 30, 2025. GAO said agencies used millions of workdays of leave to support workforce reductions.
A smaller future payroll may generate savings, but evaluating that claim requires subtracting near-term salary costs and tracking which leave supported the reductions. OPM’s combined category prevented that direct calculation.
Scope and response
GAO analyzed payroll data from 76 agencies, including 19 large agencies covering about 95% of the civilian workforce. It recommended public disclosure of unresolved reliability problems and a new payroll category for workforce-reduction leave. OPM agreed.
The original contribution is to quantify the tension in the same record: roughly seven in every ten estimated 2025 dollars were linked to deferred resignations, but the underlying data also carried a documented holiday overcount. Both facts are necessary to assess accountability.