Last Updated: September 23, 2026

In late January 2025, the Office of Personnel Management sent a memo to approximately two million federal employees with a simple proposition: resign now, keep your pay and benefits through September 30, and never come back to the office. The offer was called the Deferred Resignation Program, or DRP.

One year later, a new estimate from the Partnership for Public Service puts the price tag on that proposition at $4.5 billion in salary and benefits paid to employees who were not working.

That estimate stood for five months. On September 15, 2026, GAO put DRP paid administrative leave at about $6.7 billion in salary alone, higher than April's salary-plus-benefits figure.

The figure comes from the Partnership's Federal Harms Tracker, a data tool that drew on OPM records, congressional reports, and independent research to build the most detailed accounting yet of what the administration's workforce reductions actually cost. The $4.5 billion is not the program's total impact. It is a component of nearly $71 billion in estimated total costs tied to all workforce reduction actions taken in 2025.

If you are a federal employee trying to understand what happened, or if you are still weighing a separation offer, the numbers below give you the most complete picture available.

Three Estimates, Reconciled

Estimate Source What it counts Population Period
$4.5 billion Partnership for Public Service (April 2026) Salary plus benefits (component figures no longer published) ~138,000 Leave through 9/30/2025
$6.7 billion GAO-26-108477 (September 2026) Salary only, from agency payroll data 144,312 in reviewed agencies Calendar 2025
$11.1 to $15.1 billion Public Citizen (June 2026) Salary plus benefits ~139,600 Data through March 2026, including later separations

GAO's salary-only figure exceeds the Partnership's salary-plus-benefits figure by roughly $2.2 billion. April's estimate was low on the narrower cost basis, which makes the gap a methodology gap rather than a program change. GAO's is the only one of the three built from agency payroll data.

What the Deferred Resignation Program Was

The DRP launched on January 28, 2025, through an OPM memo headlined "Fork in the Road." It offered every eligible permanent federal civilian employee the same basic deal:

  • Accept by the deadline (initially February 6, then extended)
  • Receive full pay and all benefits through September 30, 2025
  • Be placed on administrative leave immediately with no work duties
  • Resign effective at the end of the administrative leave period

The framing paralleled a similar ultimatum Musk had issued at Twitter in 2022, where employees were given a comparable stay-or-resign deadline. Employees who did not respond were characterized as choosing to stay and "accept the new normal."

Union leaders, legal experts, and employee advocacy groups immediately raised concerns. The American Federation of Government Employees warned members not to sign. Just Security called the offer "legally dubious," noting that OPM had no clear statutory authority to make government-wide deferred resignation offers that bound agencies to pay employees for months of no work. Courts later found that the administration had overstepped in some areas, though most DRP agreements were honored.

For employees who accepted, administrative leave began almost immediately. For employees who held out through multiple follow-up rounds, the deal terms changed.

How the $4.5 Billion Estimate Was Built

The Partnership for Public Service built its cost estimate from the ground up, using OPM data on the distribution of leave durations across the DRP population.

Leave durations varied by agency, by when an employee signed, and by whether the position was deemed mission-critical enough to require a delayed separation; the Partnership's published distribution of those durations is no longer on its tracker page, so we do not reproduce the cohort figures here.

The time employees were paid without working ranged from less than one week to more than 30 weeks.

The Partnership's April 2026 analysis, as reported by Federal News Network at the time, applied an average weekly federal salary plus a benefits load to those leave durations to reach $4.5 billion. The Partnership's tracker page no longer carries the component figures (we could not re-verify the weekly salary or the benefits percentage on September 23, 2026), so this post presents only the headline figure and the population it covers.

The partnership acknowledged the estimate is conservative. Some costs remain unmeasurable, including the institutional knowledge that left with departing employees, the downstream effects on agency service delivery, and the cost to recruit and train replacements.

The $4.5 billion sat inside the Partnership's April 2026 $71 billion total cost estimate. Its component breakdown is no longer published on the tracker and we could not retrieve the original report on September 23, 2026, so only the two DRP figures are shown here:

Category Estimated Cost
Deferred Resignation Program (138,000+ employees, no work) $4.5 billion
GAO-26-108477: DRP administrative leave, salary only (144,312 employees) $6.7 billion (not additive to the $71B tally)

The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations reached a different but related number. In its July 2025 "21.7 Billion Blunder" report, the PSI found that the DRP alone accounted for $14.8 billion in identifiable waste, using a broader accounting that included all DRP iterations through mid-2025 and estimated participation above 200,000 employees. The PSI counted only the June 2025 stopping point, while the Partnership used confirmed OPM data on actual payments made.

The gap between the two figures reflects different methodologies and data access, not a fundamental disagreement on the direction of the finding. Both are cost estimates; neither establishes long-term net savings or the lack of them, and GAO makes no savings estimate at all.

Who Took It: Agency Breakdown

The GAO published a detailed accounting of DRP participation across 23 major agencies for the January through June 2025 period. The numbers show that participation was not evenly distributed.

Agency DRP Participants
Department of Defense 48,002
Department of the Treasury 17,640
Department of Agriculture 16,414
Department of Health and Human Services 1,829 approvals, 2.1% of the measured workforce (GAO-26-108719, table 3; January to June 2025)
Department of the Interior High rate (some regional offices 75%+)
All 23 agencies combined 143,904

DoD's participation rate is partly explained by its sheer size (the department employs roughly 750,000 civilians) and by the active communication from some DoD components that further involuntary reductions were coming. When employees believe RIFs are imminent, voluntary offers become more attractive.

At the U.S. Forest Service, more than 3,500 employees accepted deferred resignation in the second DRP window alone, representing a significant fraction of the agency's roughly 30,000-person workforce. Interior Department regional teams reported participation rates of 75% or more in offices expected to be consolidated or reduced.

Treasury's 17,640 participants included a large number of IRS employees. The agency ultimately issued a "second and final" DRP opportunity after the initial round, framing it as the last chance before involuntary action.

The pattern across agencies was consistent: DRP acceptance accelerated when agency leadership implied that those who stayed would face worse terms later. In some cases that implied threat was accurate. In others, the RIFs it forecasted either did not materialize or were far smaller than suggested.

Was It Worth It for Employees?

For most employees who accepted, the DRP provided a cushion that traditional severance could not have matched in one key way: it started paying immediately, without requiring an agency to formally initiate a RIF.

But the DRP had a structural disadvantage that most employees did not fully understand at the time: it was classified as a voluntary resignation, not an involuntary separation. That distinction matters for three reasons.

First, DRP participants are not eligible for federal severance pay. The federal severance formula is one week of base pay per year of service for the first 10 years, and two weeks per year for years 11 and above, plus an age adjustment of 2.5% per quarter over age 40. An otherwise eligible full-time employee with exactly 20 years of service at a GS-13 Step 5 salary (roughly $117,000 in 2025) would have had about 30 weeks of pay coming, roughly $67,000 before any age adjustment, in a RIF separation. That employee received no severance after accepting the DRP.

Second, DRP participants gave up appeal rights. Employees who were fired through a RIF or improper separation had legal remedies at the Merit Systems Protection Board and in federal court. Employees who voluntarily resigned under the DRP waived those rights. Courts later explored whether DRP agreements were truly voluntary given the context in which they were made, but most agreements stood.

Third, the DRP did not credit toward retirement in any special way. Employees on administrative leave during the DRP continued to accrue FERS creditable service, which was one genuine benefit of the arrangement. However, the resignation date was still their separation from federal service, and that date determined their FERS annuity calculation.

For employees who were close to retirement eligibility and wanted a few months to reach a milestone (say, a minimum retirement age with enough service to unlock an immediate annuity), the DRP could have been genuinely useful if the timing worked. For employees who were far from retirement eligibility and had significant years of service, the math often favored waiting for an involuntary action with severance attached.

The Federal News Network summarized it directly: some employees with 15 years of service calculated that their severance if laid off would have been roughly equivalent to what they received through the DRP, but without having to resign voluntarily or forfeit appeal rights.

The Boomerang Effect

One of the more striking findings in the post-DRP accounting is how quickly some agencies moved to bring people back.

The Partnership's April 2026 estimate also carried a separate rehiring-cost component; that figure is no longer published on its tracker and we could not re-verify it, so it is omitted here. None of the published estimates capture the cost of knowledge replacement at agencies where DRP departures created operational gaps.

The DOGE boomerang documented in agency after agency showed that many of the functions vacated through the DRP could not simply be left unfilled. The U.S. Forest Service lost fire management personnel. The IRS lost revenue agents. Interior lost land management and environmental review specialists. Unlike probationary employees who were fired and then rapidly court-ordered back, DRP employees had resigned voluntarily and can return only through a hiring action: reinstatement for eligible former career employees (5 CFR 315.401) or a new appointment, either of which takes months and needs agency approval.

The GSA rehired approximately 285 of the 600 to 700 Public Building Service employees it had cut. The National Weather Service received authorization for 450 new hires to replace departed meteorologists and hydrologists, but was still onboarding those replacements through late 2025.

What the boomerang reveals is that DRP departures were not, in fact, a clean elimination of expendable positions. Many of them were positions the government needed, paid for twice: once through the DRP while the employee was not working, and again to recruit and train a replacement.

DOGE Math vs. Reality

DOGE's official position was that the DRP generated savings by reducing the long-term federal payroll. The logic: paying someone for eight months of no work is expensive in the short term, but cheaper over a multi-year horizon than retaining that employee indefinitely.

That logic depends on the assumption that all departing employees would otherwise have stayed for years and that their positions would not need to be filled. Neither assumption held for a large portion of the DRP population.

The Senate PSI's $14.8 billion waste figure for the DRP was the largest single line item in its $21.7 billion total. The PSI categorized the DRP as waste rather than savings because the government received no work output in exchange for those payroll dollars. In the PSI's framing, a buyout that eliminates a position generates savings. Paying employees to resign while receiving no services in return does not.

DOGE's broader accounting problems extended beyond the DRP. A POLITICO investigation found that of $145 billion DOGE claimed to have saved through cancelled contracts by the end of June 2025, only $1.4 billion was verifiable. The methodology DOGE used for contracts, counting maximum theoretical contract value rather than actual obligated spending, made every claimed number larger than reality.

By November 2025, DOGE had ceased to operate as a centralized entity. Individual agencies took over its functions. Elon Musk told an interviewer that DOGE had been only "somewhat successful."

What This Means for Employees Facing Offers Today

Second and third-generation DRP offers are still circulating. Interior, Transportation, and HHS made new offers in late 2025 and early 2026. These offers differ from the original DRP in several ways.

The paid leave duration is shorter. The original DRP extended through September 30, 2025, giving some early acceptors more than 30 weeks of paid leave. Second-generation offers are agency-specific and cover a significantly shorter window.

Employees age 40 and older now get the consideration periods the Older Workers Benefit Protection Act requires before they can waive age-discrimination claims: at least 21 days for an individual waiver, 45 days for a qualifying group program, plus a 7-day revocation period, rather than roughly one week.

The pressure tactics have continued. Agencies have communicated, explicitly or implicitly, that those who do not take the voluntary offer may face involuntary action on worse terms. Whether that pressure materializes into actual RIFs varies by agency and mission area.

Before accepting any separation offer, whether a DRP, a VERA, a VSIP, or a standard buyout, you should calculate what you are giving up.

Calculate Your Severance Before You Decide

The federal severance formula is more generous than most employees realize, especially for longer-serving workers. It is also the amount you forfeit if you voluntarily resign under a DRP instead of waiting for an involuntary separation.

Use the free Severance Pay Calculator to estimate your federal severance based on your years of service, salary, and age. Compare that figure to the duration of paid leave in any current DRP offer before you sign anything.

If you are retirement-eligible or close to it, use the FERS Retirement Calculator to price your annuity at different separation dates. The calculator has no involuntary-separation option, so whether a RIF date would qualify you for a discontinued service retirement is a separate eligibility question; our discontinued service retirement guide covers it.

If your agency has offered a VERA alongside a DRP, use the VERA/VSIP Decision Calculator to compare taking VERA/VSIP now against working longer; the DRP's paid-leave months and separation date are not inputs, so price that path separately.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much did the federal deferred resignation program cost taxpayers?

The Partnership for Public Service estimated $4.5 billion in April 2026 (salary plus benefits). In September 2026, GAO put DRP paid administrative leave at about $6.7 billion in salary alone (GAO-26-108477), and Public Citizen's salary-plus-benefits range runs $11.1 to $15.1 billion. The estimates differ in what they count, which population, and which period. GAO's is the only one built from agency payroll data.

How many federal employees accepted the deferred resignation offer?

According to GAO data, 143,904 employees across 23 agencies were approved for a government-wide or agency DRP offer from January through June 2025. OPM's own figures put final acceptance at 138,541. Some estimates that include later agency-specific rounds put total participation above 200,000.

Which agency had the most DRP participants?

The Defense Department led all agencies with 48,002 employees accepting deferred resignation. Treasury was second with 17,640, followed by Agriculture with 16,414. At some Interior Department regional offices, participation rates reached 75% or higher.

Was the deferred resignation program better than severance pay?

It depends on your situation. Employees who took the DRP gave up their right to severance pay because the DRP was classified as a voluntary resignation, not an involuntary separation. Federal severance uses a formula of one week of base pay per year of service for the first 10 years, then two weeks per year after that, plus an age adjustment. For employees with fewer than 10-12 years of service, the DRP often provided more time paid than severance would have. For longer-serving employees, severance could have been comparable or more valuable, and it would not have required giving up appeal rights.

Are there new DRP offers in 2026?

Yes. Several agencies including Interior, Transportation, and HHS offered new deferred resignation rounds in late 2025 and into 2026. These second-generation offers are narrower in scope, shorter in duration, and agency-specific rather than government-wide. Employees age 40 and older now get the Older Workers Benefit Protection Act consideration period, at least 21 days for an individual waiver or 45 days for a qualifying group program, plus 7 days to revoke.

Did DOGE actually save money through the deferred resignation program?

No published figure shows it. The minority staff of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations estimated the DRP generated $14.8 billion in waste by paying approximately 200,000 employees not to work for up to eight months. Independent analysts found that DOGE's total claimed savings across all programs were a fraction of actual costs incurred.

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