Rubbish Check
Guardian US · 16 September 2026
source“US government paid federal employees $9.5bn not to work amid Doge cuts, report”
R2/ 10
Lightly altered
Rubbish Rating — 1 = base fact, 10 = pure rubbish
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In short
Rubbish Talk rates the Guardian's headline that the US government "paid federal employees $9.5bn not to work amid Doge cuts" a 2/10 because the figure and framing come straight from the GAO's own report, with only a minor omission: GAO's number is an estimate it says data flaws could overstate, and OPM's counter-claim of long-term savings is absent.
The Verdict
Lightly altered. The headline is a near-direct restatement of the Government Accountability Office's own finding, not a spun interpretation, but it presents an estimate as a flat number and skips the administration's rebuttal that the program was designed to save money long-term.
What actually happened
The Government Accountability Office reviewed payroll data across 76 agencies and found that federal agencies' use of paid administrative leave increased by 435 percent from 2023 to 2025, with an estimated $9.5 billion in salary costs on paid administrative leave in 2025, a sixfold increase from 2023. Most of that cost traces to the 2025 deferred resignation program, under which OPM directed agencies to place federal employees on paid administrative leave from January 28 through September 30, 2025, with some retiring employees paid through December 31. GAO calculated about $6.7 billion of the total was associated with the deferred resignation program.
Key facts
- $9.5bn total 2025 paid-administrative-leave salary cost, a sixfold increase from 2023 (GAO).
- 435% rise in administrative-leave usage from 2023 to 2025.
- $6.7bn (about 70% of the total) tied specifically to the deferred resignation program.
- Workdays of paid leave rose from 4m (2023) and 4.4m (2024) to 21.6m (2025).
- 144,312 employees across the 76 reviewed agencies took leave under the program.
- Federal workforce down roughly 355,000 since January 2023.
What to watch for
GAO itself flagged that its estimate could be an overcount, as agencies commonly misreported holiday and other leave as administrative leave. Watch for OPM's counter-framing, having previously claimed the program would save $20+ billion in costs, annually, a claim the Guardian piece doesn't engage with. Any revised GAO or OPM cost reconciliation would be the next data point to check.
About this scoreThe R-Score is Rubbish Talk's editorial opinion on how far a headline's framing sits from what the underlying facts support. It is a judgement about presentation and emphasis, not an allegation that any outlet has acted dishonestly. Every figure we rely on is linked under Receipts so you can check it yourself.
