Education Department Offers Staffers $25,000 to Quit by Monday
The Senate confirmed Linda McMahon as Education Secretary. Trump said last mont he hopes she does such a great job that she puts herself out of a job.
Politico reported that the Education Department offered staffers $25,000 in cash to quit by 11:59 PM ET on Monday.
Yes. Today:
Employees have until Monday at 11:59 p.m. to make a decision, Jacqueline Clay, a chief human capital officer, wrote in an email sent on Friday afternoon.
“This is a one time offer in advance of a very significant Reduction in Force for the US Department of Education,” Clay wrote.
Those who take the offer can stack it with retirement benefits. They will receive the equivalence of severance pay or $25,000, whichever is less, Clay wrote in an email. The offer would take effect March 31.
Most department employees are eligible. A few exceptions include those that are using disability retirement, received a student loan repayment benefit in the last 36 months or was awarded a retention bonus in the last 12 months.
An Education Department official confirmed the email to Fox News: “We can confirm that the Education Department emailed its staff today, offering employees up to a $25,000 Voluntary Separation Incentive Payment (VSIP) starting today.”
The Senate confirmed Linda McMahon as Education Secretary.
✅ CONFIRMED: Linda McMahon as the 13th Secretary of Education
FOLLOW: @EDSecMcMahon pic.twitter.com/N98ZzY1Qbl
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) March 3, 2025
President Donald Trump cannot destroy the Education Department via Executive Order since its formation went through Congress.
But that doesn’t mean officials cannot dismantle the awful department from the inside.
In February, Trump told the press that he wanted McMahon to put herself out of a job. From The New York Post:
“I told Linda — ‘Linda, I hope you do a great job and put yourself out of a job,’” Trump, 78, recounted to reporters Tuesday. “I want her to put herself out of a job [in the] Education Department.”
A few weeks later, Trump reiterated his hatred towards the department, calling it “a big con job.”
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Comments
Dang, he’s right
I must say I appreciated the federal 501 regulations for my son who had language dyslexia, but that system has become so abused.
People literally want their children labeled to make what they think is an easier path, not because the kid needs assistance.
Just gross
Now we just need corresponding legislation. Put it in a budget bill so it can’t be filibustered.
Usually buyout offers have the condition that you don’t badmouth the company. Then you get several months severance pay.
It’s a good idea anyway. Your next boss will take what you say about your last boss as what you’ll be saying about him in a few years. Your last job was always one you really enjoyed.
I am starting to have problems with the appearance of this hurried, mass approach and, if I am, it may come back to become a serious political issue. I don’t care how good or bad you are, if you have done what was asked of you by your boss in some office and are on the verge of retirement, you should not be exposed to being fired without a pension from a government job. This is not like Twitter which surely had no pension and probably few employees over the age of 40.
Its tough when you lose a job shortly before retirement, but there is nothing special about federal workers. They deserve no special benefits. Every single one of them has been making an above average salary, with splendid benefits for jobs that have not been the least bit difficult and have not heretofore faced RIFs..
If now they face the same reality that other Americans face every day, that’s hardly a tragedy.
My mother would say, “That’s life among the poor people.” Welcome to it.
I’ve twice lost jobs due to changes at my employer. Once in the private sector (when my work was basically shit-canned after the company decided to go in another direction – I was away on vacation when the decision was made, when I came back, my entire workspace was empty) and once in government (when my position was eliminated, along with many others, due to budget problems). Right now, I’m facing 24 furlough days over a period of two years, a loss of more than a month’s salary, also due to budget problems (aka spending like a drunken sailor and realizing the wallet is near empty). (I was subject to a furlough at my other state job as well, before being cut.)
There’s nothing unusual about this at all. Relatively few people in the work force have absolute job security.
Welcome to the world of working for other people.
Working for yourself means that the business owns you. During my career I owned numerous business and also from time was an employee at other times.
You see how both Trump and Musk work their tails off, I did the same. That is the reality of a business owning you.
I believe they all have FERS, TSP, and social security benefits, and if they so wish, the opportunity to keep working somewhere else.
For lower level people, a government job is understood at hiring to not be like the private sector. You heard it here first. If they start screwing rank-and-file out of pensions shortly before retirement, the “heartless” Republicans will not win in 2028. The Democrats will have the issue they need to win again.
By and large, most government jobs are for lazy people, that is understood, that is the problem.
Most people do NOT work for the Federal government, and I doubt if there is a ton of sympathy out there for them.
I understand them being upset at losing a job they never thought they’d lose, but I don’t see it translating to anyone else in the private sector thinking its particularly “heartless”.
Whether or not the Dems use it for election propaganda, its this or something else they’d come up with. It is foolish in the extreme to base policy on whether or not the Dems can twist it into a sound bite.
You’re right. My mother, an “independent” who has nevertheless never voted for a Republican in her life, would DEFINITELY never vote for one in 2028..
How many votes do you think Biden would have lost (had he run for a second term) due to his cancellation of the Keystone Pipeline (which cost more than 52,000 jobs)? Probably not many. The people who disapproved wouldn’t have voted for him anyway, and the people who approved were already his supporters. I don’t see a reason why Trump would be any different. He doesn’t have a large base among non-military/non-LEO federal employees, and the majority of the American people elected him to do what he’s doing. And most people probably understand that absolute job security is a given almost nowhere, having lost jobs themselves. It’s tough, but you have to break eggs to make spam, eggs, and spam (which I just had for dinner – yes, two pieces of spam with my eggs).
Being offered a payout is not the same as being “exposed to being fired.”
Nonetheless, I was a star employee, RIFfed because our company was bought by another, who went out of business themselves in about a year. Not only was no pension involved other than a matched 401K, but my stock awards became worthless to boot. Cry me a river, too.
As it is written, “Shit happens.”
Sensible people don’t believe otherwise.
I was “quiet” forced out of company because I was to successful and a white male over 50. All the new hires were 28-40 and 70% were women. I hung around for a year because I knew how to maneuver the system. I left on my own terms and burned the RVP and the VP on the way out the door. I had the pleasure of knowing that the Doctors I called on dropped their order rates by 80% after I left. So I have no sympathy for those in the bloated Federal Government being RIF’d or bought out. Quit crying and find another job.
In Q4 I was put on the chopping block and was getting taken out with the tide of wasteful do nothings and unnecessary private sector people. Unlike what other people in the same circumstances were saying “this is due to larger tides and has nothing to do with me personally” —- with them it was not true and with me it was true. I put down extreme value and was pulled back.
None the less it was a VERY stressful time in my life. The job market sucks right now. I am pretty set financially, but had not prepared my cash flow for this change. I more than most will appreciate how this is for people who do not have their financial lives squared away. That said- they are living on MY money.
To a large degree we have a government that does NOTHING to service the people who pay for it. I have a child in school and abolishing the DOE will not impact our family in the least. In fact education will probably improve when it is gone. So if I don’t miss it, and my taxes end up going down with it gone- then sorry these people need to go find work in the private sector.
I will go a step further- the employer of these people has weaponized the agency AGAINST the people who pay for it. So in that facet I am forced to pay those who persecute me and my beliefs. In which case I support DOGE in a very caffienated manner of slashing government not just with a chainsaw, but a wrecking ball, bull dozer and everything else they need to dismantle something that for the past decade has been transformed to a grift/weapon against the people.