Remind me because I’m dense and can’t scroll through all the comments: assuming they release data on December 5, would that be the last data point or would we wait until the January release?

EDIT: nvm, I found the comment. It would be worth pinning or adding to the description. The January release (of the December data) is the last data point.

I'm confused why this market is trending so high while the chart is showing that they're not even quite halfway to 250k with 2 months to go. Sure, there's probably delay, and sure the shutdown might bring a glut. But double the YTD, after DOGE has already basically given up the ghost? What do you all see that I don't?

@Stralor About 150k employees took a buyout at the start of the year, and their last day was september 30, but this has not shown up in data yet because of the shutdown https://www.npr.org/2025/09/30/nx-s1-5545715/federal-employees-fork-deferred-resignation-trump

@brod Republicans did all of that for a manifold bet??????

@Xizted that’s correct. @datachef is actually stephen miller

@brod it’s not certain at all that none of the 154k have shown up in the numbers. For all we know, maybe half of them are already baked in.

@MachiNi No it is fairly certain that if not all, the vast majority will not have shown up on the FRED numbers yet. They’re on the federal payrolls due to the nature of the buyout deal. What’s more uncertain is whether they’ll all be off immediately in the next data release or whether it’ll take a few releases to clear.

@bens I really don’t think it’s that clear — I could dig up the article that made me doubt it but I won’t. Different agencies report numbers differently, so apparently some could have been dropped from the payroll before September. Don’t quote me on that. I might be wrong

@brod epic, thanks for the explanation!

It's so wild that it's mid-October and this is still a 50/50

@Robincvgr what makes it not wild is if it really was the target, which it seems it was. If they’re getting close, which they are, we don’t know how close it’ll be until the end. So it has to be a coin toss this late in the game.

@MachiNi I think that's evidence for a high probability, not 50/50. If I have a goal to make 120,000 widgets in a year, and I've made 10,000 widgets a month for 10 months of that year, I think that you would think it's more likely than not that I get to 120,000

(This is arguendo, I don't have a take on whether it really was the target or not.)

@Robincvgr paradoxically I think it’s better evidence earlier in the process, because it’s only later that falling short of your target in any given month can make you miss it altogether. I think of it like aiming to run a PB or WR in a marathon. Being a few seconds off target pace in the early miles means nothing. But if you’re still on a razor thin margin close to the end it’s far from guaranteed you’ll make it. And this is exactly what we’re seeing here. If you look at the data we have, it really looks like it’s going to be close and we won’t know until the very end. The last month could decide whether it’s 245k or 255k.

@Robincvgr but they didn’t, so far they did 10k a month, which is half the goal. What everyone is expecting is the firing during sept and oct.

@MindBenderMads correct, and there’s a huge uncertainty about how many of the people who took the buyout are still on the payroll or not. And again, if it’s close, how many extras they fire during the shutdown might decide the outcome.

@Robincvgr at this point it's pretty clear that about 250,000 federal employees have been cut, I think this market is mostly trading on how many months it takes for that data to show up in FRED, especially given the data reporting uncertainties with the shutdown. The administration does not care about the explicit month that the DRP recipients trigger in FRED, for example, just us degenerate gamblers care about that.

@bens how is it that clear Ben? It’s just a gov shut down.

@MindBenderMads see https://manifold.markets/Ziddletwix/will-trump-elon-cut-250000-governme#si0p2tk241c

@bens yup, took act on it already

So far I think he laid off around 100k. Will them fire another 100k till end of 2025? (Since the shut down sources say he fired 10k people).

@MindBenderMads I don’t think so

Kalshi page offline for anyone else?

@polymathematic it's working for me

@brod loading now. perhaps was a weird phone/caching issue.