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DOGE's $160 billion in savings have cost $135 billion, analysis finds
Aimee Picchi
CBS News
Fri, April 25, 2025 at 5:07 PM CDT
4 min read

Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, says it has
saved $160 billion through its push to root out wasteful or fraudulent government spending. But that effort may also have come at a cost for taxpayers, with a new analysis from a nonpartisan research and advocacy
group estimating that DOGE's actions will cost $135 billion this fiscal
year.

The analysis seeks to tally the costs associated with putting tens of
thousands of federal employees on paid leave, re-hiring mistakenly
fired workers and lost productivity, according to the Partnership for
Public Service (PSP), a nonpartisan nonprofit that focuses on the
federal workforce.

PSP's estimate is based on the $270 billion in annual compensation
costs for the federal workforce, calculating the impact of DOGE's
actions, from paid leave to productivity hits. The $135 billion cost to taxpayers doesn't include the expense of defending multiple lawsuits challenging DOGE's actions, nor the impact of estimated lost tax
collections due to staff cuts at the IRS.

DOGE has sought to slash federal spending by urging government workers
to accept a deferred resignation plan, which allowed many employees to
retain full pay and benefits through September without working. Another
24,000 government employees who were fired as part of the reform effort
have since been rehired after a court ruling.

Other agencies also have rehired some workers after mistakenly firing
them, such as bird flu experts who were dismissed by the U.S.
Department of Agriculture. Federal workers have also had to take on
tasks such as documenting their weekly accomplishments, which has
lowered productivity, Max Stier, president of the Partnership for
Public Service, told CBS MoneyWatch.

"We haven't seen much focus on the waste [DOGE] is creating," Stier
told CBS MoneyWatch about his group's decision to analyze the costs of
DOGE's cuts. "This is an effort that was created to address waste, but
we were seeing the opposite."

"Ultimately it's the public that will end up paying for this," he
added, noting that he expects the taxpayers costs to grow after other
DOGE cuts take effect.

The White House took issue with the analysis.

"The continued attempts to sow doubt in the massive accomplishments of
this never-before-seen effort to make government more efficient speaks
more about the illegitimacy of those peddling these falsehoods than
good work of DOGE," White House spokesman Harrison Fields said. "The
American public are in lockstep with the president's mission and will
not be swayed by more lies coming from the legacy media."

Why job cuts could raise costs

The IRS, which is planning on cutting roughly 40% of its workforce,
could forego $323 billion in tax revenue over the next decade due to
lower tax compliance and a decline in audits, according to an estimate
from the Yale Budget Lab.

To be sure, the DOGE cuts could pay off over time, with a leaner, more
focused federal workforce. For example, the direct savings from those
layoffs will amount to $38 billion over 10 years, the Partnership for
Public Service estimated.

But Stier maintains that the costs for taxpayers could grow as they
ripple through the economy, such as reductions in funding of health and
science research. One analysis by researchers at institutions including
the University of Maryland and University of Pennsylvania estimates
that cuts to health research will result in a $16 billion annual
economic loss, with 68,000 jobs lost.

"One can always imagine a miracle occurring, but none of this makes
sense on so many different levels," Stier said.

DOGE's "wall of receipts"

DOGE keeps a running public tally of the federal money the task force
says it has saved, posted on its website (https://doge.gov/savings) in
what is called a "wall of receipts." But some of those savings have
been overstated, a February CBS News investigation found.

At the same time, DOGE's $160 billion in savings is far less than
Musk's previously stated goal of shrinking annual government spending
by $2 trillion, or almost one-third of the federal budget. Many experts
say that far more ambitious objective is unlikely to be achieved
without cutting major federal programs like Social Security and
Medicare, which President Trump has vowed not to touch.

Musk said Tuesday that he'll curtail his work at DOGE starting in May.
His decision comes as Tesla, the electric vehicle maker he runs, saw a
71% plunge in first-quarter profit and a 20% decline in vehicle sales
as some consumers snubbed the brand due to objections to Musk's
government work.

Musk said he still plans to spend one to two days a week on
DOGE-related work, focusing on eliminating government waste.

"I'll have to continue to keep doing it for the remainder of the
president's term to make sure the waste and fraud doesn't come roaring
back," he said during Tesla's first-quarter earnings call on Tuesday.

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