Associated Press reported that the second Trump administration’s effort to shrink the federal government began with sweeping personnel changes under DOGE, a unit led by then-adviser Elon Musk, according to a one-year look at what workers say was lost—and what they say is still unclear—after the cuts began. For some employees, the disruption was immediate and personal, and for many it has persisted as lawsuits continue and court rulings leave outcomes uncertain.
One example described by the report is Thea Price, a former program operations manager at the U.S. Institute of Peace, a congressionally funded nonprofit. Price anticipated change but said she never expected her life to be thrown into “such disarray,” describing what she characterized as “the complete destruction” of her workplace and asking “And for what?”
The report said DOGE staffers entered the USIP building early last year and that the effort quickly became a battle over control of the institute, with Trump later putting his name on the Washington headquarters. It said the blow to workers came on March 28, 2025, when USIP employees were fired, a judge later reversed that decision, and then another ruling reinstated firings—leaving former workers describing a whiplash of employment status.
At the broader level, DOGE and the White House have pointed to large figures for savings. The DOGE website says it has saved about $215 billion through job cuts, contract and lease cancellations and asset sales, as well as grant rescissions. The White House, through spokesperson Davis Ingle, said Trump was given a mandate to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse and that “In just a year, he has made significant progress in making the federal government more efficient to better serve the American taxpayer.”
But the report also described difficulty pinning down what was actually saved or lost. It said the Government Accountability Office and other organizations that examined aspects of the DOGE operation have not been able to pinpoint how much was saved or lost by the reform efforts, and that many challenges to the administration’s numbers remain. Dominik Lett, a budget analyst at the Cato Institute, said there were “basic mistakes” on the DOGE pages tracking savings and that he believes the numbers were too high, while also saying “we don’t know how much DOGE has saved” given the complexity of the moves.
A separate analysis cited in the report came from Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Kamarck said her review of media reports and public sources found about 25,000 people fired under DOGE were later rehired because they were deemed essential, and she estimated potential savings might range from $100 billion to $200 billion, though she said final figures remain highly uncertain. The report also referenced a GAO analysis of civil rights division layoffs at the Education Department that it said may have cost $38 million, with employees paid months after termination.
The report said DOGE’s actions have been challenged in court, with more than a dozen lawsuits filed over the past year. The challenges cited in the report include disputes over grant cancellations, mass firings and buyouts, access to sensitive Treasury data and payment systems, and the closure of federally funded programs. Musk, in an interview with conservative influencer Katie Miller last December, said his DOGE efforts were only “somewhat successful” and that he would not do it again.
USIP’s case, as described, added another layer to the uncertainty for affected workers. The report said USIP leaders and employees sued, arguing the institute was independent of the executive branch, and that a federal judge ruled Trump had acted outside his authority—restoring control of the institute and reinstating workers with backpay. It said an appeals court later stayed that decision in June, prompting USIP staff to be fired again, and that the case is suspended now while a U.S. Supreme Court decision in another personnel-related case is pending.
For workers, the legal uncertainty has also meant prolonged economic strain. The report described Price returning from maternity leave one day before she was fired and then being fired again, describing how she and her husband, whose museum-contract job was affected by project funding cuts, relied on reserves and applied for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits that took months. It said she was later forced to use a food pantry when a government shutdown stopped her SNAP payments, and that after applying for dozens of jobs the family moved from the capital region to Seattle.
Other USIP employees described similar churn. Liz Callihan, who worked in communications at USIP, told the report she applied for 140 jobs after being fired and said she often wonders why her former employer became a target of DOGE, asking in the report, “I absolutely ask myself every day what all this was for.” The report said some former USIP employees have found new work, but many have faced headwinds in a market flooded with skilled labor, including those still tracking job searches and pending court cases that could determine whether back pay and benefits return.
Sources used in the report also suggested that DOGE’s presence did not fully disappear from the public view. It said the original DOGE effort had “dissipated” from the public, but that DOGE officials had been hired into permanent roles in parts of the federal government, including at the Treasury Department, adding to the sense among former workers that the aftershocks linger.