The Deal
In February 2025, the Office of Personnel Management sent an email to 2.3 million federal employees offering a “deferred resignation” deal. Employees who accepted would stop working immediately but continue receiving pay and benefits through September 30, 2025.
OPM called it voluntary. The subject line was “Fork in the Road.”
75,000 accepted the first offer. 125,000 more left in September when Schedule F reclassification began. The program cost $4.5 billion. Workers who stayed faced reassignment, relocation, or reclassification.
Seventy-five thousand employees accepted. The program cost approximately $4.5 billion in salary and benefits paid to workers who were no longer performing their jobs.
The September Cliff
The first round removed 75,000. The second wave was larger. When the Schedule F executive order took effect, reclassifying tens of thousands of career civil servants as at-will employees, 125,000 more left in September 2025 alone.
Some retired. Some resigned. Some took positions outside the federal government.
The distinction between “voluntary” and “coerced” depends on context. The alternative to accepting the deal was remaining in a workforce where Schedule F reclassification could strip civil service protections at any time. Workers who stayed faced potential reassignment to different agencies, relocation to different cities, or reclassification that removed their ability to challenge termination.
What Left With Them
The workers who departed had decades of institutional knowledge. EPA employees who left had a median tenure of 30.3 years. The ones who stayed had 10.8 years.
This pattern repeated across agencies. The most experienced workers, the ones who knew how systems worked and where risks existed, were the most likely to leave.
Nuclear safety inspectors. Dam engineers. Food safety scientists. Air traffic controller trainers.
These are not positions where institutional knowledge can be replaced by hiring someone with a relevant degree. The expertise was built over careers and transmitted through mentorship. When the mentors left, the pipeline broke.
What you can do now
- Call your U.S. senators and ask them to co-sponsor legislation reversing the Schedule F executive order that reclassified career civil servants as at-will employees. 125,000 workers left in September 2025 alone because staying meant losing civil service protections. Use Resist Bot to send a message.
- Contact your U.S. representative and ask them to demand GAO oversight of the $4.5 billion spent on the Fork in the Road program. Taxpayers paid full salary and benefits to 75,000 workers who were no longer performing their jobs. Ask whether the cost-benefit analysis was ever completed.
- Tell your senators to protect collective bargaining rights for federal employees. The workers who stayed after the deferred resignation wave face reassignment to different agencies, forced relocation, and reclassification that strips their right to challenge termination.
- Ask your representative which critical safety positions in your state were affected. Nuclear safety inspectors, dam engineers, food safety scientists, and air traffic controller trainers left. EPA employees who departed had a median tenure of 30.3 years. Their replacements, if any exist, have a fraction of that experience. Find your state page for local federal workforce impacts.