By midnight today, federal workers must decide whether to accept or reject Trump’s buyout offer. What will happen to those who reject the offer and decide not to resign?

A federal judge on Thursday temporarily paused President Donald Trump’s plan to offer buyouts to millions of federal workers, an initiative aimed at trimming the federal workforce but that

The judge could opt to delay the buyout further or block it on a more permanent basis when he next considers the legal challenge by the unions at a hearing on Monday.

The administration set a deadline for Thursday at 11:59 p.m. Eastern for employees to decide on the offer. But a federal judge in Massachusetts paused the deadline until at least a hearing set for Monday at 2 p.

The resignation package offered by the White House is part of its plan to cut down on the number of federal employees.

A federal judge on Thursday pushed back to Monday a deadline for U.S. government employees to opt into the Trump administration's "deferred resignation" program offering workers nearly eight months of pay and benefits to leave their jobs.

The Trump administration gave most of the country’s federal employees just nine full days to decide if they want to resign with pay through the end of September.