Government workers are reeling after President Donald Trump’s administration presented a “payout” to federal employees refusing to return to the office on a full-time basis.
The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) sent an email to millions of government employees on Tuesday, offering eight months of pay if they resigned by Feb. 6. In response, federal employees and Democratic representatives have lodged anonymous complaints to media outlets.
This followed Trump’s executive order forcing government workers to return to the office on a full-time basis on Jan. 20. “It was the batshit craziest email I’ve ever read,” one anonymous employee told POLITICO’S E&E News. “They’re gonna have to take me out kicking and screaming.” “It’s just not happening,” said one United States Department of Energy worker.
“There’s no way I’m sending ‘Resign’ to this jinky email address,” another staffer said. “I don’t care what you throw at me,” one U.S. National Science Foundation worker said, noting that they were “more angry now” and they were “not going to quit.”
Politico recorded many other grievances from the workers, who called the offer “insulting,” “perplexing … and dangerous” and an attempt to “dismantle the government.”
“This is STRAIGHT from the pages of Project 2025,” Democratic Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett wrote on X, Newsweek reported. “Trump is offering a fake ‘buyout’ to federal workers with no guarantee he won’t screw them the minute they accept — and then replace them with unqualified, inexperienced loyalists the second they leave.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed the legitimacy of the offer on Wednesday, according to NBC News, stating that if government employees “don’t want to work in the office and contribute to making America great again, then they are free to choose a different line of work, and the Trump Administration will provide a very generous payout of 8 months.”
It’s estimated that 5-10% of government workers will take Trump’s offer, according to NBC and Axios.
It is a “common setup” for federal employees to work from home three days a week, according to NPR. One federal staffer told the outlet that after her commute she is “just so brain dead” and she “cannot imagine trying to get in the car and go in a third day.”
Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa released a report on Dec. 5. highlighting the issues with government employees working remotely. “Bureaucrats have been found in a bubble bath, on the golf course, running their own business, and even getting busted doing crime while on taxpayers’ time,” the document states.
Federal employee buyouts are not new or exclusive to Republican leadership. Former President Bill Clinton signed a similar bill back in 1994, The New York Times reported. Its aim was to cut the government workforce back by 12%, to 1.88 million.
There were 2.4 million federal employees at the start of 2025, according to Pew Research Center.
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