U.S. government spending on inactive personnel grew throughout the 2025 fiscal year. The Trump administration paid $9.5 billion to federal employees not to work, a Government Accountability Office finding. These expenditures represented a 435% increase in leave costs under the Trump-Musk Department of Government Efficiency program aimed at shrinking the federal bureaucracy.

The DOGE initiative used paid administrative leave as part of a broader strategy to reduce the size of the federal workforce. The GAO report details the fiscal impact of those transitions as the administration sought to eliminate waste and cut the total number of government employees.