I think the main issue for anyone wanting to take the offer is simply: this was never authorized by congress, so the money to pay people to September is questionable if it exists at best. Meanwhile, there's a government funding deadline on March 14, 2025. So there's a very real chance at this deal offering something closer to ~1 month of pay before it suddenly gets dropped due to budget negotiations.
It would be an incredibly generous and nice buyout package, but obviously if it gets torn up after a month it's not that great of a deal.
Aren't Twitter workers still trying to get their severances and they took the offer when Twitter actually had the money to pay.
Considering that SpaceX is so far behind on its bills that dozens and dozens of companies in Texas have had to place liens against the company, my guess is that neither the Twitter people, nor the SpaceX people, nor the federal buyout people will ever see a dime.
For some reason, links to stories about the leins and SpaceX becoming notorious for not paying its bills are hard to come by, but it's in the printed newspapers regularly; as recently as yesterday. Here's and older link I could find: https://www.chron.com/culture/article/spacex-overdue-bills-t...
> so the money to pay people to September is questionable if it exists at best
Incorrect.
The money is budgeted through September (end of federal FY). Things are currently only funded through March 15 (CRs and whatnot). The money is or will be there. Historically, even if there is a furlough, this money is backfilled and folks are paid. Note that there will probably be riots if lengthy furloughed folks don’t get back pay.
> So there's a very real chance at this deal offering something closer to ~1 month of pay before it suddenly gets dropped due to budget negotiations.
Correct.
The speculation is that:
1. The “resign” folks will be put on admin leave in March 1 (or earlier).
2. Budget impasse in mid-March. Furlough ensues.
3. Folks on admin leave just end up getting cut, or not paid, and/or not back paid due to peculiarities of admin leave.
> It would be an incredibly generous and nice buyout package, but obviously if it gets torn up after a month it's not that great of a deal.
I think it’s above average, but not “incredibly generous”. People get $25k VSIP and VERA offers all the time. This may not seem like a lot, but many fed employees live in low COL areas and/or earn relatively low wages.
The best parts of the package, assuming they deliver, would be things like insurance (for non-retirees) and possibly TSP contributions and matching (if those are allowed).
If they want the numbers they say that they want, I think something near this level of package is necessary.
> The money is budgeted through September (end of federal FY). Things are currently only funded through March 15 (CRs and whatnot).
Since the budget is only funded through March, the budget can be modified in March in order to extend the funding for it (all those "government shutdown avoidance negotiations"). At which point it won't matter whether it was budgeted or not.
If they were not paid because they were on "admin leave", does that look bad for Trump, or does that look bad for Congress? And who in a Republican Congress will want to do that anyway? They're mostly on board for this bullshit aren't they?
I think the adminstration's plan to execute on this is basically garden leave. They tell the "retiring" employees to stop working, but keep them on the payroll so they keep getting paid.
This administration has been playing a lot of games with "budgeted" vs. "delayed" vs. "actively being worked on" (or not). So this isn't really that different than the abrupt cancellations or delays or re-org'ing of funded and legislatively mandated work.
The main difference is the uncertainty. IMO anyone would be incredibly foolish to accept a deal from a random email with such limited info on the exact terms of what happens in edge cases like you describe: shutdown, budget shenanigans, actual official RIF, etc.
yeah this is not a buyout, this is someone asking people to resign and that MAYBE their employer will look the other way while they don't work until the effective resignation date but no guarantees about it.
That's a setup for firing people on the spot for cause if I've ever seen one.
It is incredibly foolish to entertain this offer. OPM v Richmond[1] held that the government has effectively zero liability for lying about financial benefits that haven't been specifically authorized by Congress.
Fortunately, the current US president has a long and storied history of going out of his way to pay people mutually agreed-upon sums from prior contracts.
Kind of odd seeing people casually discuss the mechanics/details of what's been going on this last week, as if they whole thing isn't just flagrantly illegal.
If they don’t fulfill their end of the agreement (paying until the date in question) then surely any agreement to quit in return for X months pay would be broken? So you’d still be employed unless the pay out is made?
This is where I go ”I know nothing about US law but if I wouldn’t win this argument in any court even without representation then it must be fundamentally broken”
The argument would be ”those who entered the agreement didn’t have the authority to do so” but obviously that can’t hold water.
The question is whether if the deal gets voided by the court, the employee has to still quit or whether they can then return. Especially since the employee wouldn't be formally terminated until the end of the twelve months.
Have the exact payment details been released? Because I understood it as "you will get paid same as always through September, you just don't have to show up to work". Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but that doesn't sound like a "buyout" in the traditional sense.
It is not a buyout. OPM has said that agencies can opt to put people who choose this on administrative leave (but they don't have to, they can keep the people working). So the effect is what the name is "deferred resignation", OPM pinky swears that you won't be cut before 30 September in a RIF or other actions if you take this offer and you'll get your biweekly pay as normal.
Doesn't the budget to pay these people already exist? They are current employees, after all. Their terminations will still shrink the budget, just not as soon as a termination without a severance package.
Maybe there are some legal differences in offering what would otherwise be wages as a lump-sum payment, but the budget for those wages already exists (else they could not be employed).
Didn’t the budget already include pay for these people through the end of the fiscal year though? Will they need more money if the people stop working now vs stopping in September?
The government is still an employer and subject to the same liability if not more so. I'd think workers would have a strong case to sue for damages if that happened. I'd take that bet. I can't imagine a situation where a judge wouldn't side with the employee on this.
Not American here. Isn't Congress controlled by Republicans? If I understand correctly, it would take 5+ Republicans voting against the party line for a Republican bill to fail to pass? Is this common?
If the gov will not be funded and you don't believe the gov will honor it's severance agreement why would you believe the employment contract will be honored after March 14?
There’s many examples of government shutdowns where workers received back pay even when they didn’t work those hours.
So future administrations are likely to retroactively approve payments if it becomes a political issue. Honestly taking the buyout without an act of congress backing it is likely the more risky here unless you where already planning to leave which is likely why most people took it.
I can’t blame anyone for taking the risk. That’s life changing money for normal people. And if you’re in a good spot to get a new job fast, I could see taking a chance on it.
Well, their positions are funded (depending on how FY25 funds were allocated to the agency). The order just means they can potentially not come to work until September.
Well it is a good thing Trump and co are so well known for paying what they owe. These people are dumb if they take the offer. Job market has been cooked for 3 years already, these people will not fair well.
Correct. Donald Trump has had a reputation for stiffing people for close to 50 years now.
These workers will resign, and won't get paid what they were told they'd get paid.
This is a man who is so cheap, so petty, he held up billions of dollars worth of economic relief during COVID just so he could have his signature on a bunch of stimulus checks.
I wrote it elsewhere, but no. It may or may not be a paid vacation. Agencies get to decide themselves, not OPM, whether the employees are put on leave or continue to work. There is zero guarantee that anyone will get administrative leave under the offering.
The list of expenditures never authorized by Congress is staggering. You're spot-on about the authorization risk but it's just the latest in a perpetual issue. Congress has normalized funding "zombie programs" through autopilot appropriations rather than proper reauthorizations. Notable zombie programs include VA health, women's health spending, NIH research...
House Rule XXI (blocking unauthorized spending) gets waived a majority of the time. 50% of expired programs haven't been reviewed in 10+ years. 2023 alone saw $236B in improper payments.
So IMO while the buyout could get axed the pattern suggests they'll likely kick the can with another CR. Perhaps this administration will try to force a different tack, I suppose we'll see.
As someone who worked on a NIH funded project whose funding wasn’t renewed last fall after 10 years. Those 10 years included a bunch of renewals. NIH projects aren’t zombie and need constant attention. Plus all research done has to be put in the public domain.
》 So there's a very real chance at this deal offering something closer to ~1 month of pay before it suddenly gets dropped due to budget negotiations.
I do not see your arguments
US has worker protections, even if US government goes bancrupt, it has to pay its obligations. And if government refuses to pay, no worker, even if employed, is getting anything!
And you think that an offer accepted by sending an email with "Resign" in the subject line is subject to these protections? You think DOGE is even authorized to make said offers? Why, because Elon and Trump said so?
Also your last line is just bizarre. The US government can very much selectively pay some parties but not others during a shutdown. That's kind of the definition of a shutdown....
Plus this administration is already brazenly breaking laws. You think they won't violate worker protection laws? Sure, maybe the courts sort it out in a year or two, small comfort to the people who were relying on that income to pay their rent in the meantime.
No, they don't. Contracts are enforced by the threat of the state's monopoly on violence. If the US goes bunk, who exactly are you going to to get your money? The courts are bunk too.
Even if the government exists, if Trump and Musk hold the payment system and you somehow get a judge to tell them to pay, they can just say no. Then what? Are you going to go Rambo? They hold a monopoly on violence and imprisonment.
This is why government's need to be set up with so many layers of indirect power and checks against direct power. this is why the military (should) have no role in governance.
If congress doesn't allocate the money, they won't be paid, even if they have a contract that says they will.
Imagine Trump decided to offer a worker a trillion dollars. He writes a contract with the worker. It is irrelevant - the worker won't be paid because the executive branch is not allowed to spend money that hasn't been authorized by congress.
> The buyout offer entitles federal employees to stop working more or less immediately and continue to be paid through Sept. 30.
> The federal workforce's normal attrition rate is about 6% a year, meaning some of those who've taken the buyout may have been planning to leave government service anyway.
Wow, talk about an amazing deal if you already happened to be planning on leaving...
Wow, talk about an amazing deal if you already happened to be planning on leaving...
I'm guessing the vast majority who take the deal were already planning to leave? So we're wasting tax payer money giving them 8 months severance when it could have been 0.
I also suspect that there really isn't nearly as much "waste" here as Musk is alleging, so we are going to be forced to re-hire people, while still paying a ton of workers for 8 months of no work.
This doesn't seem "efficient" to me, but "efficient" is a word that doesn't actually mean anything without context, which they don't provide.
This is one of the problems with voluntary redundancy, which is quite common in some countries. You do tend to lose the people who can easily find jobs elsewhere and get left with the people who can’t, so it selects for a less skilled workforce when all’s said and done.
I would not leave. Getting into the federal system was hard before, it's going to be near impossible now. For people who are not AI experts, engineers, doctors, etc. the federal government offers pay and benefits unparalleled to anything those same people would find in the private sector. Not to mention the job protections that really don't exist in any other private sector American company.
I feel like that used to be true, but I'm not sure it's been true for the last ~decade or so. My mom works for the federal government as an attorney. She likes her job, but she has mentioned to me that there are just as many layoff rounds, if not more, as you'd get in the private sector.
Moreover, there are a lot of things that are kind of bullshit; her office refused to provide paper towels or soap in the kitchen, so she had to spend her own money and bring them in herself.
Are soap or paper towels expensive? No, it's not beyond her means, but it's not like most private sector jobs "brag" about having paper towels near the sink, it's usually not considered a "perk".
ETA:
Just a note, these complaints go back to even the Obama years, I think.
Here's a detailed look at how total compensation compares between the private sector and federal positions by education level: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/60235
The key takeaways:
- staffers with high school or some college make more, on average, working for federal gov't, primarily due to the benefits. But it's an exaggeration to describe the difference as "unparalleled"
- comp is roughly equivalent for holders of bachelor's
- comp for holders of professional degrees or doctorates (JD, MD, MBA, PhD) is significantly lower on average for federal jobs
> For people who are not AI experts, engineers, doctors, etc. the federal government offers pay and benefits unparalleled to anything those same people would find in the private sector.
This is just not really true. I work in the private sector with former federal employees and every single one is making more money now than they were in government.
What is true is that there are jobs in the government that are not available at all in the private sector, like prosecutor, police officer, military officer, spy, law clerk, legislative director, special agent, etc.
Many of these require high educational achievement and/or expensive training and are compensated to attract talented people. But it’s also true that most of those people who leave for the private sector make more money there.
> if you already happened to be planning on leaving...
This is why you should ignore any absolute numbers about people taking the buyout.
You want to look at the relative percentage taking the deal compared to their normal turnover.
If the number of people taking the "buyout" isn't significantly higher than their normal turnover, that's a sign that they're just overpaying people who were already leaving.
I heard that on average 10,000 employees retire every month. So if you had planned to retire in Jan/Feb/Mar, you might as well take the buy out and gain a few extra months of basically "free pay". That is assuming that it actually arrives in your bank account.
Except that the money hasn't been approved by congress and will probably never be paid because the employees will have absolutely no method of redress it it is not.
> Wow, talk about an amazing deal if you already happened to be planning on leaving...
What does "planning on leaving" mean? I am personally planning on leaving this year, if a better opportunity shows up. As I was last year.
"Planning on leaving" means very little until you have a firm offer in hand. And when you do have that offer, then you are just leaving, not "planning on leaving".
>> The buyout offer entitles federal employees to stop working more or less immediately and continue to be paid through Sept. 30.
Except it doesn't entitle them to stop working. OPM cannot tell workers to stop working or put them on leave. It's up to their agency to determine if they will keep them working or put them on leave. The framing by whoever is in OPM is disingenuous.
When you put it that way it does seem like a win win for both sides. The Trump haters get almost a year of paid vacation and the administration gets less internal drama.
Pretty standard government worker deal. I am not crying too many tears over government workers facing just a smidge of the uncertainty that everyone else has been living with since Covid. Your salary/promotions/healthcare/retirement are no longer guaranteed by just doing enough to not get fired (which is almost impossible)? Boo hoo, Welcome to the reality that everyone else in the world works in. In tech we are scrabbling for jobs, navigating layoffs, and fighting tooth and nail to prove we create value and justify our salaries. I don't think it is cruel to request "public servants" do the same.
8 months paid would be an insane deal for private industry layoffs. We all just get a sad email and some well wishes.
Most of us in tech also get paid far, far more than anyone in the public sector. It’s always been my perception that the reliability of the job is a perk that makes up for the subpar salaries. I don’t think public sector workers are as spoiled as you make out.
I've always found this approach of reducing the number of employees unwise from the company perspective (but pretty good for the employees, though).
While the unsatisfied employees are the target, my observations indicate that a high percentage of active and skilled people are willing to take this offer, as they are sure that they will find a new place within a reasonable time, so it's basically, free money. And those are the people that the company should try to keep as much as it could.
While the "give me a task with the perfect description, and I will do it" folks will stay until they are kicked out, as, usually, they are not up to taking the initiative.
That's why I saw how the companies that were changing the rules in the process: "well, it's an offer, but your manager needs to approve that first", and other tricks to be able to reject it for the top performers. Needless to say, it leads to the bad moral.
However, the companies I'm mentioning had way fewer employees than the federal workforce, so the chances are that with that size it's impossible to do it the "right" way.
Yes, but I believe this is the intent. It's not a matter of it being good for the business when the CEO of said business intentionally wants it to fail.
On a larger level, if the active & skilled people are taking the deal, doesn’t it mean they’re likely moving on to something that is a better fit and thus good for society anyway?
Part of two groups will leave, the actual skilled, hardworking people who know they can get another job. And the people who are retiring anyways.
Part of me thinks that just ends up with a higher percentage of worse workers.
Obviously many hard working people will stay, but you'd be pretty certain the people will little skill and value, ironically, are going to be the highest percentage that stay as they know its not going to be easy to get another job.
Good, we want the competent and skilled people within government to go to private enterprise in big numbers, so they can amplify their skills and effect in private enterprise. Then we can reduce the number of government agencies, because they are always less effective than private enterprises.
The problem is when we have the lazy and incompetent bureaucrats sticking around, and us the taxpayers are paying for their pension while getting back very little in return.
Honestly, I'm not sure what all the screaming and crying on hacker news is about; hackers are all about creating efficiency with unorthodox insights and skills. pretty sure no hackers have said "why yes, I've love to pay more in taxes for the bureaucrats to retire in style after doing very little"
> because they are always less effective than private enterprises.
I think this is one of those ideas that has been spouted for so long that we don't really stop to think about whether it is true. Private and public entities (and employees) certainly have different incentives, but they also have different mandates, and I've certainly known plenty of inefficient private enterprises and efficient public ones. Do you have any way of verifying or proving this idea that you can share?
There are some pretty significant differences between Twitter employees and federal government employees, starting with the fact that a lot of latter group are part of a powerful union.
Sure, but even in a normal situation, all the Union can do is provide greater resources to initiate legal and possibly work actions. Which, in a normal situation might be very effective.
This is NOT anything resembling a normal situation; to treat it as such is merely an exercise in normalcy bias.
Under an authoritarian regime, as is being setup as we type, legal actions are irrelevant as the judicial and legislative branches lose independence and serve the executive. Work actions likely result in the union being decertified and dissolved.
Yeah well some dude from South Africa is running around in government buildings fucking with computers and no one seems to be doing anything about it. Anything goes these days. Union or not.
I think they'd "like" to, but he legal protections for the employees in this case are vast compared to twitter. But as an employee, I would worry that they would try... we already have an administration that SCOTUS has decided is above the law in other ways.
There's a lot of people that, due to their living situation, wouldn't be able to comply with the new executive order banning work from home. If the choice is between being fired either way, I can see many people opting to take the possibility of a severance while they find alternative work
I'm in this situation. I was hired fully remote (and no office to "return" to), many states away from DC and no intention to move (not for an administration that would have no scruples about firing me at any point, for any reason).
Since I'm fairly sure my goose is cooked either way, I am considering doing the deferred resignation thing just to get a few more dollars in my pocket before the inevitable comes.
Finding new work is going to be freaking great with rapidly dropping consumer confidence and the random ass tariff changes scaring the hell out of businesses.
The offer mirrors Elon's offer to Twitter employees and many of them did not receive the money they were promised.
Elon doesn't have the legal authority to make this offer today, it's poorly defined, and not a standard separation policy for federal employees. I'm not saying they won't be paid out, but I would't bet my livelihood on it
>Thinking that the new administration will just openly refuse to pay people's salaries as part of a formal deal?
The chief executive of the new administration is literally and actually widely known for doing that exact thing repeatedly, for decades and decades, up to and including screwing local municipalities who entered into binding legal agreements with him to incur expenses to be repaid in full as part of his campaign.
> Donald Trump often portrays himself as a savior of the working class who will "protect your job." But a USA TODAY NETWORK analysis found he has been involved in more than 3,500 lawsuits over the past three decades — and a large number of those involve ordinary Americans, like the Friels, who say Trump or his companies have refused to pay them.
> In addition to the lawsuits, the review found more than 200 mechanic’s liens — filed by contractors and employees against Trump, his companies or his properties claiming they were owed money for their work — since the 1980s. The liens range from a $75,000 claim by a Plainview, N.Y., air conditioning and heating company to a $1 million claim from the president of a New York City real estate banking firm. On just one project, Trump’s Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, records released by the New Jersey Casino Control Commission in 1990 show that at least 253 subcontractors weren’t paid in full or on time, including workers who installed walls, chandeliers and plumbing.
> In courtroom testimony, the manager of the general contractor for the Doral renovation admitted that a decision was made not to pay The Paint Spot because Trump “already paid enough.” As the construction manager spoke, “Trump’s trial attorneys visibly winced, began breathing heavily, and attempted to make eye contact” with the witness, the judge noted in his ruling.
Do you know who the President and his crony is? Have you seen Musk and Trump lie, repeatedly, about paying invoices and stiffing people? Have you seen Musk not pay his Twitter employees after he took over? Do you have a memory problem?
Why would you believe otherwise? Trump is notorious for nonpayment, and Elon doesn't exactly have a good record in that area w/r/t Twitter's severed employees. Sure, historically, you might claim something about the government meeting its obligations, but if the last two weeks have shown us anything, it is that President Trusk believes that nothing the government did before matters.
Of course, if they decide to not pay you it won't matter if you took this or tried to keep your job. So you may get a head start and turn your time to searching for a new job now. If they do end up following through with the buyout payments in the end, that is an added bonus.
> Interesting they say their goal is 5-10% when normal attrition is six percent, that means essentially their goal is -6 to 4%
Basically, yes.
If they had worked within the existing VSIP (voluntary separation) and VERA (early retirement) systems, maybe by tweaking things like max payouts, they could have almost guaranteed 10%+ by September, imho.
The haphazard and non-standard way they’ve gone about it, however, makes me think that they will be at the low end of their range.
The other possible explanations are:
- they don’t really intend to pay those who resign (e.g., via admin leave status and then having a furlough in March)
- their ultimate goal is to have people not take the deal so that they can just fire with impunity. Imho, this type of reduction will only work for folks on probation (who, imho, are the only ones who should actually consider taking the resignation offer).
The plan seems to be to fire almost all government emoloyees. The only historical parallel I can come up with is the De Baathification program in Iraq 2003.
Readit News
It would be an incredibly generous and nice buyout package, but obviously if it gets torn up after a month it's not that great of a deal.
Considering that SpaceX is so far behind on its bills that dozens and dozens of companies in Texas have had to place liens against the company, my guess is that neither the Twitter people, nor the SpaceX people, nor the federal buyout people will ever see a dime.
For some reason, links to stories about the leins and SpaceX becoming notorious for not paying its bills are hard to come by, but it's in the printed newspapers regularly; as recently as yesterday. Here's and older link I could find: https://www.chron.com/culture/article/spacex-overdue-bills-t...
Case: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/68307087/agrawal-v-musk...
The only substantive order in the case to date appears to be one denying Elon Musk et al.'s motion to dismiss one of the claims: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.42...
1. https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/10/elon-musk-does-not-owe-ex-...
Correct.
> so the money to pay people to September is questionable if it exists at best
Incorrect.
The money is budgeted through September (end of federal FY). Things are currently only funded through March 15 (CRs and whatnot). The money is or will be there. Historically, even if there is a furlough, this money is backfilled and folks are paid. Note that there will probably be riots if lengthy furloughed folks don’t get back pay.
> So there's a very real chance at this deal offering something closer to ~1 month of pay before it suddenly gets dropped due to budget negotiations.
Correct.
The speculation is that:
1. The “resign” folks will be put on admin leave in March 1 (or earlier).
2. Budget impasse in mid-March. Furlough ensues.
3. Folks on admin leave just end up getting cut, or not paid, and/or not back paid due to peculiarities of admin leave.
> It would be an incredibly generous and nice buyout package, but obviously if it gets torn up after a month it's not that great of a deal.
I think it’s above average, but not “incredibly generous”. People get $25k VSIP and VERA offers all the time. This may not seem like a lot, but many fed employees live in low COL areas and/or earn relatively low wages.
The best parts of the package, assuming they deliver, would be things like insurance (for non-retirees) and possibly TSP contributions and matching (if those are allowed).
If they want the numbers they say that they want, I think something near this level of package is necessary.
Non-American here with only a Mickey Mouse understanding of US mechanics of power.
Since the budget is only funded through March, the budget can be modified in March in order to extend the funding for it (all those "government shutdown avoidance negotiations"). At which point it won't matter whether it was budgeted or not.
This administration has been playing a lot of games with "budgeted" vs. "delayed" vs. "actively being worked on" (or not). So this isn't really that different than the abrupt cancellations or delays or re-org'ing of funded and legislatively mandated work.
The main difference is the uncertainty. IMO anyone would be incredibly foolish to accept a deal from a random email with such limited info on the exact terms of what happens in edge cases like you describe: shutdown, budget shenanigans, actual official RIF, etc.
That's a setup for firing people on the spot for cause if I've ever seen one.
[1]: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/496/414/
Reminds me of this: https://www.upworthy.com/hypernormalization-explained.
This is where I go ”I know nothing about US law but if I wouldn’t win this argument in any court even without representation then it must be fundamentally broken”
The argument would be ”those who entered the agreement didn’t have the authority to do so” but obviously that can’t hold water.
Maybe there are some legal differences in offering what would otherwise be wages as a lump-sum payment, but the budget for those wages already exists (else they could not be employed).
The only thing would require more budget is hiring backfills (while paying out the leave).
Supposedly, they can get the same work done with fewer people.
It’s arguably an unconscionable contract, it’s so wickedly one-sided.
So future administrations are likely to retroactively approve payments if it becomes a political issue. Honestly taking the buyout without an act of congress backing it is likely the more risky here unless you where already planning to leave which is likely why most people took it.
These workers will resign, and won't get paid what they were told they'd get paid.
This is a man who is so cheap, so petty, he held up billions of dollars worth of economic relief during COVID just so he could have his signature on a bunch of stimulus checks.
Dead Comment
I wrote it elsewhere, but no. It may or may not be a paid vacation. Agencies get to decide themselves, not OPM, whether the employees are put on leave or continue to work. There is zero guarantee that anyone will get administrative leave under the offering.
House Rule XXI (blocking unauthorized spending) gets waived a majority of the time. 50% of expired programs haven't been reviewed in 10+ years. 2023 alone saw $236B in improper payments.
So IMO while the buyout could get axed the pattern suggests they'll likely kick the can with another CR. Perhaps this administration will try to force a different tack, I suppose we'll see.
I do not see your arguments
US has worker protections, even if US government goes bancrupt, it has to pay its obligations. And if government refuses to pay, no worker, even if employed, is getting anything!
Also your last line is just bizarre. The US government can very much selectively pay some parties but not others during a shutdown. That's kind of the definition of a shutdown....
Plus this administration is already brazenly breaking laws. You think they won't violate worker protection laws? Sure, maybe the courts sort it out in a year or two, small comfort to the people who were relying on that income to pay their rent in the meantime.
Even if the government exists, if Trump and Musk hold the payment system and you somehow get a judge to tell them to pay, they can just say no. Then what? Are you going to go Rambo? They hold a monopoly on violence and imprisonment.
This is why government's need to be set up with so many layers of indirect power and checks against direct power. this is why the military (should) have no role in governance.
Imagine Trump decided to offer a worker a trillion dollars. He writes a contract with the worker. It is irrelevant - the worker won't be paid because the executive branch is not allowed to spend money that hasn't been authorized by congress.
This is not the world being offered to them, so good luck doing anything but throwing money at lawyers.
everyone who thinks laws are just something you can invoke like magic should go sit down.
> The federal workforce's normal attrition rate is about 6% a year, meaning some of those who've taken the buyout may have been planning to leave government service anyway.
Wow, talk about an amazing deal if you already happened to be planning on leaving...
Give then history of this particular admistration & business', I personally wouldn't be too confident in actually getting paid up to Sept.
Dead Comment
This doesn't seem "efficient" to me, but "efficient" is a word that doesn't actually mean anything without context, which they don't provide.
Moreover, there are a lot of things that are kind of bullshit; her office refused to provide paper towels or soap in the kitchen, so she had to spend her own money and bring them in herself.
Are soap or paper towels expensive? No, it's not beyond her means, but it's not like most private sector jobs "brag" about having paper towels near the sink, it's usually not considered a "perk".
ETA:
Just a note, these complaints go back to even the Obama years, I think.
The key takeaways:
- staffers with high school or some college make more, on average, working for federal gov't, primarily due to the benefits. But it's an exaggeration to describe the difference as "unparalleled"
- comp is roughly equivalent for holders of bachelor's
- comp for holders of professional degrees or doctorates (JD, MD, MBA, PhD) is significantly lower on average for federal jobs
This is just not really true. I work in the private sector with former federal employees and every single one is making more money now than they were in government.
What is true is that there are jobs in the government that are not available at all in the private sector, like prosecutor, police officer, military officer, spy, law clerk, legislative director, special agent, etc.
Many of these require high educational achievement and/or expensive training and are compensated to attract talented people. But it’s also true that most of those people who leave for the private sector make more money there.
This is why you should ignore any absolute numbers about people taking the buyout.
You want to look at the relative percentage taking the deal compared to their normal turnover.
If the number of people taking the "buyout" isn't significantly higher than their normal turnover, that's a sign that they're just overpaying people who were already leaving.
Any takers around here want to elaborate on their choice?
What does "planning on leaving" mean? I am personally planning on leaving this year, if a better opportunity shows up. As I was last year.
"Planning on leaving" means very little until you have a firm offer in hand. And when you do have that offer, then you are just leaving, not "planning on leaving".
Except it doesn't entitle them to stop working. OPM cannot tell workers to stop working or put them on leave. It's up to their agency to determine if they will keep them working or put them on leave. The framing by whoever is in OPM is disingenuous.
8 months paid would be an insane deal for private industry layoffs. We all just get a sad email and some well wishes.
While the unsatisfied employees are the target, my observations indicate that a high percentage of active and skilled people are willing to take this offer, as they are sure that they will find a new place within a reasonable time, so it's basically, free money. And those are the people that the company should try to keep as much as it could. While the "give me a task with the perfect description, and I will do it" folks will stay until they are kicked out, as, usually, they are not up to taking the initiative.
That's why I saw how the companies that were changing the rules in the process: "well, it's an offer, but your manager needs to approve that first", and other tricks to be able to reject it for the top performers. Needless to say, it leads to the bad moral.
However, the companies I'm mentioning had way fewer employees than the federal workforce, so the chances are that with that size it's impossible to do it the "right" way.
The goal is to destroy most of these federal agencies, so doing things that are "unwise" for the future of those agencies is exactly the point.
Like supporting advertising and/or furthering the financialization of our economy?
Part of me thinks that just ends up with a higher percentage of worse workers.
Obviously many hard working people will stay, but you'd be pretty certain the people will little skill and value, ironically, are going to be the highest percentage that stay as they know its not going to be easy to get another job.
The problem is when we have the lazy and incompetent bureaucrats sticking around, and us the taxpayers are paying for their pension while getting back very little in return.
Honestly, I'm not sure what all the screaming and crying on hacker news is about; hackers are all about creating efficiency with unorthodox insights and skills. pretty sure no hackers have said "why yes, I've love to pay more in taxes for the bureaucrats to retire in style after doing very little"
I think this is one of those ideas that has been spouted for so long that we don't really stop to think about whether it is true. Private and public entities (and employees) certainly have different incentives, but they also have different mandates, and I've certainly known plenty of inefficient private enterprises and efficient public ones. Do you have any way of verifying or proving this idea that you can share?
This is NOT anything resembling a normal situation; to treat it as such is merely an exercise in normalcy bias.
Under an authoritarian regime, as is being setup as we type, legal actions are irrelevant as the judicial and legislative branches lose independence and serve the executive. Work actions likely result in the union being decertified and dissolved.
https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/most-lawsuit-over-m...
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Since I'm fairly sure my goose is cooked either way, I am considering doing the deferred resignation thing just to get a few more dollars in my pocket before the inevitable comes.
Elon doesn't have the legal authority to make this offer today, it's poorly defined, and not a standard separation policy for federal employees. I'm not saying they won't be paid out, but I would't bet my livelihood on it
The chief executive of the new administration is literally and actually widely known for doing that exact thing repeatedly, for decades and decades, up to and including screwing local municipalities who entered into binding legal agreements with him to incur expenses to be repaid in full as part of his campaign.
This is not bias or propaganda it is fact.
This is not where you were now. This is where you were four years ago.
> Donald Trump often portrays himself as a savior of the working class who will "protect your job." But a USA TODAY NETWORK analysis found he has been involved in more than 3,500 lawsuits over the past three decades — and a large number of those involve ordinary Americans, like the Friels, who say Trump or his companies have refused to pay them.
> In addition to the lawsuits, the review found more than 200 mechanic’s liens — filed by contractors and employees against Trump, his companies or his properties claiming they were owed money for their work — since the 1980s. The liens range from a $75,000 claim by a Plainview, N.Y., air conditioning and heating company to a $1 million claim from the president of a New York City real estate banking firm. On just one project, Trump’s Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, records released by the New Jersey Casino Control Commission in 1990 show that at least 253 subcontractors weren’t paid in full or on time, including workers who installed walls, chandeliers and plumbing.
> In courtroom testimony, the manager of the general contractor for the Doral renovation admitted that a decision was made not to pay The Paint Spot because Trump “already paid enough.” As the construction manager spoke, “Trump’s trial attorneys visibly winced, began breathing heavily, and attempted to make eye contact” with the witness, the judge noted in his ruling.
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https://www.opm.gov/retirement-center/retirement-statistics/
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Basically, yes.
If they had worked within the existing VSIP (voluntary separation) and VERA (early retirement) systems, maybe by tweaking things like max payouts, they could have almost guaranteed 10%+ by September, imho.
The haphazard and non-standard way they’ve gone about it, however, makes me think that they will be at the low end of their range.
The other possible explanations are:
- they don’t really intend to pay those who resign (e.g., via admin leave status and then having a furlough in March)
- their ultimate goal is to have people not take the deal so that they can just fire with impunity. Imho, this type of reduction will only work for folks on probation (who, imho, are the only ones who should actually consider taking the resignation offer).
Poetic justice
You can read the actual 180 day plan to "deconstruct the Administrative State" in the infamous Project 2025 manifesto https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_FUL...
> Rather than de-Baathifaction, Trump and Musk are giving us de-wokeification. Expect the same ruinous results.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/03/opinion/trump-musk-iraq-t...