Rand Paul blasts $150,000 in federal spending on employee yoga classes

Rand Paul went after a familiar symbol of government excess, saying federal agencies had spent about $150,000 in taxpayer money on employee yoga classes since 2013. His latest Waste Report framed the spending as a line item the federal government should not be covering, even as some offices in Washington and across the country treat yoga as a workplace wellness benefit.

The Kentucky senator’s examples were specific. The State Department was cited for spending about $15,000 a year on yoga in Washington, D.C. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service was said to pay a yoga instructor in Berkeley, California, about $4,000 a year. The Department of Energy was also named for offering yoga and Pilates at certain sites, and the Railroad Retirement Board in Chicago, Illinois, was included as another example. Paul’s report also noted that some Senate offices require employees to pay for similar wellness offerings themselves.

That is where the debate gets more complicated than a budget talking point. The Office of Personnel Management says employee wellness programs are meant to support federal workers’ mental, emotional, and physical well-being, and its May 2023 guidance says such programs can promote physical activity and may improve productivity, retention, morale, and health costs. In that framework, yoga is not a perk pulled out of thin air. It is one tool among many for stress management and day-to-day health.

The Department of Veterans Affairs draws an even sharper distinction. The VA says yoga is an evidence-based complementary and integrative health approach within its Whole Health system, and it can help with low back pain, depression, anxiety, and sleep trouble. When clinically necessary, the practice is included in a veteran’s medical benefits package. That does not make every workplace yoga class a medical service, but it does undercut the idea that yoga itself is automatically frivolous.

Paul’s latest blast also landed with fresh Capitol Hill context. A 2024 Architect of the Capitol review found more than $14,000 was spent to bring in an outside yoga instructor for Senate staffers, along with $771 to certify an employee to teach yoga, for a total of $15,171.63 in funds for better use. The review said the Senate-side health and fitness branch had six full-time employees and none were certified to teach yoga, while the House Members’ Wellness Center already had employees teaching classes. Six purchase-card payments of $2,400 each, made from May 2022 through March 2023, helped fuel the criticism.

Paul’s 2024 Festivus report was his tenth, and his office said it totaled more than $1 trillion in alleged waste when interest on the national debt was included. Against that backdrop, yoga becomes less about a stretch class and more about a larger fight over what counts as support, what counts as waste, and who gets to decide whether calmer, healthier employees are worth the bill.