WH reports significant federal employee uptake of buyout offer

Throughout the course of his 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump promised American taxpayers that he would do everything possible to shrink the size of government and eliminate waste.

Now that he has taken office, Trump is furthering his goal of a small federal footprint by offering buyouts to employees en masse, with senior White House adviser Stephen Miller reporting that large numbers of workers are taking him up on the opportunity, as the Daily Mail reports.

Buyout offer extended

It was just last week that the administration set forth its plan to dramatically reduce the size of the federal workforce by offering employees the chance to resign from their roles immediately.

Workers who signed on to the deal would receive roughly eight months of continued pay, provided they made their decision by Feb. 6.

The offers were made available for all full-time federal employees other than military personnel, Postal Service employees, and individuals employed in capacities related to national security and immigration enforcement, according to NewsNation.

The potential significance of widespread acceptance of the offer could be massive, given that estimates indicate that the over 3 million individuals are employed by the federal government, a number that translates into roughly 2% of the entire civilian workforce.

Though the initial deadline to accept the offer was Feb. 6, a judge last week sided with a number of labor unions seeking a temporary restraining order against the administration and said that the timeline would be extended, and any deadline would not apply until after a Monday hearing on the matter.

Miller touts employee response

Though the aforementioned federal worker unions have lodged their outrage over the proposed buyouts and the larger reform movement afoot under the auspices of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Miller revealed that the actual response from the rank and file has been positive.

“I will tell you that the initial briefings that I've received suggested a large number of federal workers have accepted the buyout offer,” Miller said.

He continued, “And I think the point here to really underscore is that federal workers who are not happy in their jobs, who don't want to show up at work, who do not want to be in the office, who are not passionate about what they're doing are often not the kind of federal worker you want responsible for having enormous authority over the lives of the American people.”

Outlining the broader scope of the Trump administration's overhaul of the administrative bureaucracy, Miller noted, “This is happening in conjunction with a wholesale reform of the hiring process in the federal government to find people who are really dedicated to service at the absolute highest level.”

Though it remains to be seen just how much of the bloated federal government is ultimately whittled away by the new administration's unprecedented strategy, it appears that the president is well on his way to fulfilling one of his campaign's most substantial promises.