Washington Post outraged – DOGE laid off government workers are getting paid $15 billion annually while placed in deferred retirement.
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Photo above - Screen shot from the film Office Space. The "two Bobs" want to know what you do at work all day. 150,000 federal employees already took early retirement this year when they were ambushed by this question.
Poll for private sector employees: raise your hand if you ever resigned when given a choice between that and being let go. Okay, keep your hand up if you received more than 2 weeks' severance for agreeing to resign. Okay . . . still a LOT of hands. Mine too. Therefore, I've shelved my outrage that the WaPo found 150,000 federal workers in this "still getting paid but not coming to work" twilight zone. Presumably most of them (the smart ones, at least) are conducting a job search so they don’t lose their homes or have to withdraw their kids from college. (See link below)
The WaPo no doubt intends this as an indictment of the Trump administration. Imagine – paying people not to work. If they WERE at work, things in the USA might be much better. Wait . . . is that actually true? Is there any difference between July 2025 and July 2024? There might be but talking heads so far haven’t been able to put their finger on it.
How much is this costing America? Let’s do the math: 150,000 people, getting paid $101,000 a year (on average, see link below). That doesn’t include their $50,000 a year in non-salary benefits, but let’s stick with the 101K number. That’s . . . ka-ching . . . $15 Billion a year. Zowie. (if there are any college math majors here, double check my work please).
Okay, so 15 billion is an eyepopping number. You could build 10% of the now defunct California High Speed rail line for that. Or buy another aircraft carrier, bringing our navy to an even dozen. (the cost of the accompanying naval task force support ships and carrier based planes is not included).
Okay, now we have that 15 billion DOGE wage number in perspective. Has the USS Jerry Ford passed it’s sea trials yet? Does anybody else want to build a $260 million per mile bullet train? I’m just asking before we move on.
The real surprise here is that the Washington Post – which laid off 100 employees itself so far this year, presumably with more than 2 week's termination pay – missed the obvious: There are 1.1 million OTHER federal employees who are being paid not to work.
I am referring of course to the WFH folks. 1.1 million federal workers who are resisting the call to return full time to the office. They’ve been doing who knows what for the past 5 years. Probably more than zero. But probably not a lot more. Every WFH person I know – private sector or government – has a second laptop for side hustle purposes. Or maybe for video games. Or maybe no 2nd laptop, but a Netflix subscription. Netflix now has 80 million US subscribers, up 20 million over the past several years. The WFH banking lady at my apartment complex was at the pool all day yesterday, occasionally using her cellphone.
I hope those 150,000 deferred retirement federal employees are finding success in their job search. And the 100 terminated WaPo workers too. My advice to the 1.1 million federal drones still sheltering in place at home: you’re going to have to make your move sometime. This won't last forever, you know. Just ask any public-school teacher.
I’m just sayin’ . . .
The federal government is paying more than 154,000 people not to work
Congratulations! Average Federal Salary Now Tops $101,000 | FedSmith.com
This happened in February, it was called Fork in the Road based on the title of the email offering it. The idea was to get workers to quit voluntarily to avoid going through a formal reduction in force. Combined with the hiring freeze, it's been very effective at reducing the federal workforce.
All workers were ordered to return to the office, however, in some cases there was no office to return to.
Federal salaries are high because everyone is a trained specialist. The days when you could get a GS-3 job as a typist or receptionist are long gone. Lower paid work like janitors is contracted out. Good luck getting a federal job without a masters degree these days.
This is 100% on the Trump administration. Not workers unions or the workers themselves.
@LeopoldBloom you are likely correct. there are as many federal workers above GS 12 as under it. But that doesn't mean they have skills, like engineering, med tech, computer science, etc.. many federal jobs at GS12 and above simply require a bachelors degree, which could be anythng.
@SusanInFlorida Most of their skills can't be learned in school; they're specialized and can only be learned on the job. This is why it will take years to reconstitute the departments that DOGE decimated - you can't just hire people with college degrees and expect them to hit the ground running. Of course, you can say who needs people to process passport applications or enforce child labor laws or make sure that government contractors are actually doing what they were hired to do, until you need something from them and nobody is there to provide it.
@LeopoldBloom i don't think Citibank and Chase are asking people to come back if there's no office. The setup is "we get to fire you if you refuse to return to the office, and then downsize our real estate footprint by using AI, or hire someone willing to actually work, not just pretend"
@SusanInFlorida The government isn't going to fire someone because there's no office for them to return to. The red tape in opening and closing federal offices is unbelievable (and Musk and his muskrats didn't address that at all, other than identifying a few "soft leases" that the government could break). In contrast, if Citibank needs an office in East Cupcake, Nebraska so its WFH people can work in it, they can rent one in five minutes.
I'm not aware of any federal workers who were ordered to return to the office, refused to do so even though there was an office for them to return to, and are still working.
As for the people who took the Fork in the Road, many of them did so because they assumed they were going to be fired anyway. The fault doesn't lie with them; it lies with whoever gave them that offer (Trump, Musk, or Russell Vought - take your pick). If you were pretty sure you would be fired sometime in the next year, and your employer said you could quit and draw a paycheck for nine months, you might keep working because maybe you wouldn't be fired, but many people would jump at an offer like that.
