20k federal workers take "buyout" so far, official says

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

That's a setup for firing people on the spot for cause if I've ever seen one.

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.

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.

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...

1. https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/10/elon-musk-does-not-owe-ex-...

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...

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.

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.

Like supporting advertising and/or furthering the financialization of our economy?

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?

https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/most-lawsuit-over-m...

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.

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.

> 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.

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.

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...

Poetic justice

2) They are targeting particular employees more.

In other words, this universe.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-buyouts-to-all-federal-empl...

But does this include benefits ? How about contributions to the pension, what will be the pension benefits when you retire ? Will you be fully vested when you leave ? What happens to your security clearance (if you have one)

There are many unknowns, so to me, if you work for the federal gov, you would be insane to take this package. Unless of course you already have a guaranteed Job you can start when you leave.

Plus many IRS employees tried to take this package and was denied, now the Fed has a list of employees that want to leave. Will they be fired once Tax season is over without the 8 month package ?

That's probably their angle but tbh I'd think more of the tenure of someone who turned down money to keep their job than one who quit it for a one time payment.

1. Under RIFs, close to half of the civil service will get a better severance than this offer. So any thinking person would wait for a RIF.

2. Under VERA, people will lose this "severance" but get access to their pensions years earlier. Since VERA only applies if you have 20+ years (25 if under 50) that's 20+% of their current high-3 for the rest of their lives, sets a nice baseline income. A WG employee who started at a depot at age 18 could collect their pension starting at age 43 and get $20-30k/year for the rest of their life and still be young enough to get another job and keep earning until 60 and retire a second time.

3. A substantial number of federal employees are already working on-site (not necessarily in offices) in areas where there are not a ton of other jobs. Ask a civil servant at China Lake to resign, they have to move too, there are few jobs in the area besides that base.

4. Many federal employees are federal employees because they care about the mission. They'd rather keep doing what's been asked of them to keep things like critical infrastructure operating than go home and let things fall apart because no one is doing the work.

And if we don't know if it'd be beneficial... idk, I kinda like my life? It can get really really bad? Maybe we shouldn't blindly cut and think about it?

They should be competent at what they do. They should be qualified. And they should not be protected from losing their jobs if they are no longer necessary or are bad at what they do. This permeates many levels of society. The local example is just the tip of the iceberg. You could go up the chain to city, state and federal and find similar problems.

It's one of the most fundamental questions and one that a lot of people do not understand because they have never run a business (or ran something trivial). There are countries where getting rid of unnecessary or incompetent employees is nearly impossible. This leads to businesses not hiring people because they cannot afford the dead weight or risk involved (also leads to illicit job markets). Being able to manage your workforce is one of the most fundamental tasks in a business. It is no different in schools or government.

We cannot optimize for the best people and best outcomes because we cannot get rid of dead weight. We get stuck with the incompetent because they cannot be fired. This is madness. And, judging from the downvotes, the ignorance does not escape some HN readers. I hope one day they are stuck with people who just burn their cash and they get nothing for it. Maybe then they will understand. It is unbelievable to me that such a fundamental understanding is lacking from society. We let idiots burn the cash we send them. There is no such thing as government money, it's our money. And it must be treated with more respect than to burn it on layers of bureaucracy and incompetence.

Easy: Reality. Read on if you care to understand.

> Maybe instead of punching down("everyone should have to live as bad as I do/did") you should be raising people up

You are looking at this from the wrong perspective. What some of these protected groups have is a fantasy, a Ponzi scheme, that is only sustainable because they can take money away from us by force through taxation.

In the real world, a company cannot give their employees lifetime pensions at 80% of their last salary. This is crazy, yet, this happens across a bunch of government and other tax-supported entities.

I am not saying that everyone should live as bad as I do. I don't have a bad life and such is the case for most people. What I (and tens of millions of others) don't have is a fantasy where magical money supports exorbitant pensions, medical plans and other benefits.

Here's a super simplified math experiment. This isn't meant to be a precise model of reality, just a thinking tool to start to ask the right questions.

You hire a 60 year old for a job (again, for simplification). Say you pay them $100K US for that job.

Their healthcare plan costs $25K per year, which you also pay.

Five years later this person retires. Because they are in a protected class, you have to keep paying for their healthcare and, say, 80% of their salary for the rest of their lives. Let's say this person lives to 90, so 25 years.

Well, you need to hire another person to fulfill that role. You go and hire another 60 year old for the same role (simplifying so we only wait 5 years for retirement.

You pay this person the same $100K and spend $25K on health insurance.

In reality, this role now costs you $180K per year in salary and $50K per year in healthcare.

Why?

Because you have to carry the first ex-employee for the rest of his/her life.

Five years later, the second employee retires. Same protected benefits and conditions.

You hire someone for the same role again.

Now the position costs you $260K per year, plus $75K per year in medical.

You are 10 years into this experiment and the entire thing is unsustainable at best. If you have the ability to do it, you are forced to either outsource (China), negotiate a sensible deal or close down the business (because you might have dozens, hundreds or thousands of employees under similar conditions.

The steady state for this is when the oldest employees die, the limit function, if you will. At that point the role will cost you approximately $420K per year in salary and $125K per year in healthcare premiums.

This, of course, assuming there is no inflation and costs remain flat for 25 years, which isn't going to be the case at all. Assuming 5% per year inflation/cost-of-living increases, the numbers at the end of 25 years are $466K and $138K.

You see, what happens is that people read a comment such as mine and don't invest one microsecond actually thinking things through, much less analyzing it. This isn't difficult math. And this has nothing to do with wanting people to live, as you put it, as bad as I do. What I want is for the people WE pay to live in the same reality WE do. In this reality, you'd go bankrupt if you owned a business, small, medium or large, that provided such insanely irresponsible benefit packages.

In other words, these people live in a taxpayer-funded fantasy. And this is wrong.

And that doesn't even cover the issue of incompetence. If you cannot fire people when they are found to be incompetent, you might have to hire two, three or more people just to be able to get that one job done. Now were are in the realm of that position potentially costing you millions of dollars per year. This is incredibly wrong.