Pay for Locked-Out Voice of America Staffers Is Costing Taxpayers $1.6 Million a Week

President Trump’s effort to shut down the federally funded Voice of America is costing taxpayers roughly $1.6 million a week in salaries and benefits for hundreds of employees who have been on paid leave for a year and a half, according to a watchdog report. In March 2025, Mr. Trump signed an order to cut off funding to VOA to “ensure taxpayers are no longer on the hook for radical propaganda.” The White House also cast the order as an attempt to slash wasteful spending, and some 600 contract employees — including many foreign nationals from countries targeted for broadcasts — were quickly terminated.Programming was also slashed, shutting down most foreign language broadcasts, which were largely aimed at countries with authoritarian or hostile governments. As of March 2026, the agency that was launched to counter Nazi propaganda in 1942 was broadcasting in just four languages, down from 49. However, efforts to lay off almost 1,000 federal employees became tied up in litigation, forcing the administration to continue paying them even as it refused to allow most of them to return to work. In March 2026, a federal judge, Royce Lamberth, ruled that the staffing cuts were “illegal” and ordered the government to reinstate all the employees.Despite that ruling, the outlet still had roughly 420 employees on paid leave as of July, according to a report from the State Department’s Office of Inspector General released earlier this week. The report says that figure came from the federal agency that oversees VOA, the U.S. Agency for Global Media, USAGM.The report estimated that the payments for the employees on leave are costing the federal government about $1.6 million a week or $82.8 million annually. It says some of the original 1,000 employees have been reinstated “because of identified gaps in subject matter expertise.”The State Department report also says that the cuts have hindered VOA’s ability to achieve its goals, which include advancing “U.S. national interests, supporting democratic values and countering disinformation.”The cuts at VOA were directed by a former Arizona Republican Senate and gubernatorial candidate, Kari Lake, who harshly criticized the outlet, calling it “rotten to the core.”However, Judge Lamberth said in March that Ms. Lake had been illegally appointed to her position at the USAGM and that she “repeatedly thumbed her nose” at statutory requirements. All of her actions were subsequently declared void.After Judge Lamberth ordered VOA to reinstate employees, a White House spokeswoman, Anna Kelly, said in a statement to NBC News that the “efforts to improve efficiency at USAGM have been a tremendous success.” But in March, a group of VOA staffers sued Ms. Lake, alleging that she pushed pro-Trump propaganda.

Pay for Locked-Out Voice of America Staffers Is Costing Taxpayers $1.6 Million a Week

Pay for Locked-Out Voice of America Staffers Is Costing Taxpayers $1.6 Million a Week

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