Federal agencies spent $9.5 billion on salary costs for administrative leave in 2025

CBS News · collected 2026-09-17
Read the original at CBS News ↗

Summary

The Government Accountability Office reported that federal agencies spent $9.5 billion on salary costs for employees on administrative leave in 2025. This expenditure increased due to efforts to reduce the size of the federal workforce, according to CBS News correspondent Aaron Navarro.
Written by the local model on 2026-09-17, using this article's own text rather than the other coverage of the same event (that is the story summary below).

Signals How these are calculated →

Claims extracted
2
claim-shaped sentences
Uncertain
0%
0 of 2 hedged
Leaning
withheld
no quote in the article backed the model's score
Correction & hedging signals
77.1
corrections and hedging in what we collected; not a measure of accuracy
Outlets on this story
6
Politics
Narrative spread
1
articles carrying this framing
Analyzed 2026-09-17 · how these are computed

AI analysis (generated at analysis time, not now)

Story summary

In 2025, the Trump administration spent an estimated $9.5 billion on paid administrative leave for federal workers, a sixfold increase from previous years, primarily due to the Deferred Resignation Program (DRP). This program was part of efforts by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), headed by Elon Musk, to shrink the size of the government. The DRP offered employees up to eight months of full pay and benefits if they resigned voluntarily. Approximately 140,000 federal workers accepted this offer, leading to significant increases in administrative leave costs from 2023 to 2025. Senator Patty Murray criticized these actions, saying the Trump administration wasted billions on paying people not to work while promising to cut waste. The Office of Personnel Management defended the program, claiming it provides a $40 billion annual savings for taxpayers despite the initial costs.

Written for “DOGE Buyouts Cost Government” on 2026-09-17, grounded in this article and the 5 other(s) covering the same event.
Why this leaning score
The model judged this article politically coded and scored it -0.15, but every quote it verified points right, so the score is not published.
Written under an earlier scoring contract, which gave a paragraph rather than checkable quotes. Re-analysing this article replaces it.
Leaning score withheld for article 14862: score contradicts its own evidence · logged 2026-09-17

Story

📰 DOGE Buyouts Cost Government
Politics · 6 article(s) covering the same event.

How this is being covered How these are calculated →

Article leaning vs. publisher reliability
Source leaning vs. consistency

Compared with similar articles

This article reads unscored and hedges 0% of its claims. Each row says how that neighbour differs.
Feds paid $9.5 billion in leave costs in 2025 due to DOGE buyout same event · 100%
CBS News · 0.87 cosine similarity
⚖️ Leans right 🔴 33% hedged 6 of 18 📰 publisher trust 77
“Both articles report on the exact same financial figure and timeframe for administrative leave costs in federal agencies due to the DOGE initiative.”
Trump administration spent $9.5B last year on employee leave, driven by DOGE-era cuts same event · 100%
NBC News
⚖️ leaning not scored 🔴 20% hedged 3 of 15 📰 publisher trust 95
“Both articles report on the same specific financial expenditure of $9.5 billion by federal agencies in 2025 for administrative leave, citing a Government Accountability Office report.”
DOGE caused government to pay $9.5B to federal workers not to work same event · 100%
The Independent
⚖️ leaning not scored 🔴 7% hedged 1 of 14 📰 publisher trust 59
“Both articles describe the exact same financial expenditure of $9.5 billion by federal agencies in 2025 for administrative leave, resulting from the DOGE-led initiative to reduce the government workforce.”
US government paid federal employees $9.5bn not to work amid Doge cuts – report same event · 100%
The Guardian
⚖️ Leans left 🔴 10% hedged 2 of 21 📰 publisher trust 60
“Both articles describe the exact same expenditure of $9.5 billion on administrative leave by federal agencies in 2025, based on a report from the Government Accountability Office.”
DOGE’s ‘Fork in the road’ buyouts cost government nearly $7 billion: Watchdog different event · 85%
Washington Examiner
⚖️ leaning not scored 🔴 11% hedged 2 of 18 📰 publisher trust 96
“While both articles discuss a $9.5 billion expenditure on administrative leave costs, they refer to different reporting periods and do not specify that they are describing the exact same incident.”

Publisher

CBS News · 562 article(s) · 2 correction(s) detected
Running correction rate · 2 correction(s)
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Who wrote this

No reporter is named on this article.

Topics

CBS News' DOGE the Government Accountability Office

Subjects

Aaron Navarro PERSON · 1× CBS News' ORG · 1× DOGE ORG · 1× the Government Accountability Office ORG · 1×

Narrative

Federal agencies spent $9.5 billion on salary costs for administrative leave in 2025 A new report from the Government Accountability Office shows federal agencies spent $9.5 billion on administrative leave costs in 2025, an increase spurred by the DOGE push to cut down the federal workforce.
framing: assertive · carried by 1 article(s) · first seen 2026-09-17
2026-09-17 · CBS News
Federal agencies spent $9.5 billion on salary costs for administrative leave in 2025 · assertive framing

Claims (2 extracted, 0 hedged)

Federal agencies spent $9.5 billion on salary costs for administrative leave in 2025 A new report from the Government Accountability Office shows federal agencies spent $9.5 billion on administrative leave costs in 2025, an increase spurred by the DOGE push to cut down the federal workforce. asserted
agencies → spend → workforce
CBS News' Aaron Navarro has more. asserted
Navarro → have → more
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