Roughly 20,000 federal employees have accepted a buyout offer proposed by the Trump administration last week, according to a senior administration official speaking to Axios. While the figure represents about 1% of the federal workforce, it falls short of the administration’s goal of reducing the workforce by 5% to 10%.
The offer remains open until Thursday, and officials expect more employees to opt in despite strong opposition from unions and other critics. “We expect more to come. If you see what’s happening at USAID, it’s just one piece of the puzzle,” the official said, referencing the rapid restructuring of the U.S. Agency for International Development, which oversees foreign aid programs.
In addition to the buyout, the administration has been working to enforce a hiring freeze, though some agencies have continued hiring new employees, making implementation more difficult than anticipated.
The buyout program allows federal employees to leave their positions immediately while continuing to receive pay through September 30.
However, critics argue that the plan is legally dubious, lacks a clear guarantee of payment, and would require congressional approval. The administration has dismissed these concerns, insisting that the initiative is part of its broader effort to restructure the federal government.
The natural attrition rate of the federal workforce is approximately 6% per year, meaning some of those who accepted the buyout may have already been planning to leave government service. The administration maintains that the program is a step toward achieving its long-term downsizing objectives.
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5 Responses
these people do nothing all day
I frankly expected the number to be much higher.
The federal employees who get out early are going to have the easiest time getting into a new job/business.
Paying people until September if they quit now isn’t much of a buyout. The 1% who accepted was probably one foot out the door anyway
They got paid for nothing unofficially. Now it’s only official until the end of September.
1. The legality of this is in dispute since for almost all Federal employees, eight months pay is well over the statutory maximum for buyouts, and “paying” for the buyout with administrative leave violates the laws government administrative leave.
2. One needs to ask how many were about to leave anyways, either since they were about to retire (probably over the age of 57ish) or because they had no desire to work for Trump and would have been fired, with minimal severance for refusing to do what the Trump appointed supervisors told them to do. For these people, the “buyout” is a large windfall at taxpayer expense.
3. For employees whose jobs are about to disappear, there is a big saving for the government since the incentive to quit is substantially less than the statutory severance package that civil servants get when they are RIFed (laid off as a “reduction in force”).
4. If there is an noticeable increase in delays in getting services (e.g tax refunds and social security take longer), Trump will be blamed. In effect, he is putting himself in a “you broke it, you own it” situation.