Federal spending data are compiled by the Monthly Treasury Statements (MTS) published by the Bureau of the Fiscal Service. We focus exclusively on outlays, not budget authority, and on executive branch spending because that was DOGE’s jurisdiction….
The federal government spent $7.6 trillion in the first 11 months of calendar year 2025, approximately $248 billion higher by November of 2025 compared to the same month in 2024 (Figure 1). Cumulative spending in every month of 2025 was greater than in every other year and was approximately as much as the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected in June 2024, or slightly less in real terms. There is no visible structural break in 2025 spending that coincides with DOGE’s start date. An observer who did not know when DOGE started could not identify it in Figure 1.
Although DOGE didn’t reduce outlays by November, it sizably cut federal employment by 271,000 (Figure 2). That’s a nine percent decline since January 2025. DOGE brought down federal employment to late 2014 levels in less than 10 months, but with almost 60 percent of the decline in October.
The pace of workforce reduction was unusually rapid.
It is not surprising that such a large reduction in the federal workforce did not lead to lower outlays, since most federal expenditures are transfer payments rather than salaries.
Add new comment