This might play well with the hardcore Dem base, but, not with average Americans
A Year After U.S.A.I.D.’s Death, Fired Workers Find Few Jobs and Much Loss
She was fired by email while on maternity leave, given 24 hours to clear out her desk and left with three days of health insurance and no severance pay. She had worked for the U.S. Agency for International Development or related groups for more than two decades. She made $175,000 a year.
That was Jan. 28, 2025. Today Amy Uccello and her husband, who also lost his job when U.S.A.I.D. funding for his nonprofit dried up, rely on food stamps, Medicaid and a supplemental nutrition program for women and children that helps with their now 19-month-old daughter.
Does anyone think it, I don’t know, a massive conflict of interest that her husband’s NGO was getting gobs of money from the wife’s government agency? Did they consider saving money? Maybe it’s time to audit them to see where the money to the NGO was going
When the Trump administration dismantled the sprawling global aid agency last year, it wiped out virtually an entire industry — international development — that had been based in Washington since U.S.A.I.D.’s creation in 1961 under President John F. Kennedy. Nearly all of the agency’s 16,000 employees were laid off. An estimated 280,000 contractors, partners and local hires worldwide lost their jobs as well.
A year later, people have plowed through savings, cashed out retirement funds and moved in with friends and relatives. Former U.S.A.I.D. workers who have done informal surveys estimate that less than half have found full-time work, with many making less than before. An estimated third are unemployed. Others are in part-time work. The District of Columbia currently has the highest unemployment rate in the nation, at 6.7 percent, in large part because of major reductions in the federal work force, including U.S.A.I.D., and cuts to government grants and contracts.
It’s almost like they really have few work skills that have value in the real world.
Jobs are also gone at the many nonprofits and partner agencies once funded by U.S.A.I.D. “Everyone I know is also up the creek, all my bosses, my mentors, the people you would normally go to, the people providing me references,” said Catherine Baker, 36, who, as a contractor, made $127,000 a year recruiting staff and helping to start up U.S.A.I.D. projects. Ms. Baker now volunteers as a manager for OneAid, which helps former U.S.A.I.D. workers, and works nine hours a week as a companion for two elderly women.
I feel zero sympathy for these people who pretty much made a boatload of money off the taxpayers for very little in return. Remember how Marco Rubio said that only about 20% of the aid was making it to recipients? Here are some things as noticed by Robert Sterling from the article
EVERY person in this story was making well into six figures:
USAID employee: $175,000
USAID contractor: $127,000
USAID-funded NGO employee: $272,000(!)
USAID advisor at the DOD: $195,000
USAID contractor: $200,000There were 16,000 employees at USAID, and the New York Times was only able to interview one making less than $175k. Worldwide, there were an estimated 280,000 contractors.
Oh, and the NY Times notes
Others acknowledged that there was bloat and waste in the agency and a need for reform. Much of the $35 billion it managed in 2024 went to Washington-based contractors, not directly to people in need overseas. The success of many projects was hard to measure.
But all of those interviewed said they were still incredulous that an agency that amounted to less than 1 percent of the federal budget had been so quickly obliterated and reduced to a skeletal operation within the State Department. U.S.A.I.D. workers who once thought of themselves as ambassadors for American “soft power” said they worried about the trust in the United States that was lost overseas. They said they were still burning from President Trump’s characterization of them as “radical-left lunatics.”
You know how it could have stayed in business? By not being 80% graft and waste, full of Do Gooders who were enriching themselves, friends, and family. They dug their own pink slips.
USAID spending was 0.3% of the Federal budget or about 5% of what that wacko Trump spent on the Iran war.not including the extra 12 billion extra that has and diesel cost
Soooo…. you are creating some sort of link between the two? If we weren’t trying to stop crazies from getting a nuke, we could somehow fund more graft and corruption? Got it.
Absotively, posilutely right!
The point is that USAID added more value for the United States than the stupid invasion of Iran, regardless of how much trump and his devotees lie about the reason(s).
College Park, MD – An overwhelming majority of 89% of Americans say the US should spend at least one percent of the federal budget on foreign aid – the current amount the US spends on aid. This includes 84% of Republicans and 94% of Democrats.
Fifty-eight percent oppose abolishing the US Agency for International Development and folding its functions into the State Department, including 77% of Democrats and 62% of independents. But 60% of Republicans favor the move.
These are some of the findings of a new survey by the Program for Public Consultation at the University of Maryland, fielded February 6-7, 2025 with a representative sample of 1,160 adults nationwide.
https://publicconsultation.org/foreign-aid/large-bipartisan-majorities-oppose-deep-cuts-to-foreign-aid/
Our Trump Derangement Syndrome addled Missourian wrote:
Oh, I’d think completely destroying Iran’s nuclear weapons program is a huge value!
And what value did USAID bring to the United States? None that I can see! The nations which have supposedly been helped by USAID still hate us, and vote against American interests in the United Nations.
Our Kentucky Kunt forgot that Mr trump “oh-bliterated” Iran’s nucular capabilities months ago with B-2’s from Missouri!! Go MO!
In 2018, the Florida Fish-lipped Flounder unilaterally withdrew from the The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a landmark 2015 agreement negotiated by the Obama administration, Iran, and the P5+1 (U.S., UK, France, China, Russia, plus Germany). To this day the Flabby Floridian lies about the JCPOA, and has replaced it with an expensive and dangerous war, with no clear objectives (except to get Epstein out of the headlines).
The Foundered Fool from Florida has lost his mind. Thanks MAGAts.
Some guy using an alias wrote:
This is the kind of thinking that has caused our federal spending to metastasize like the cancer it is: “Oh, it’s just a small, such a tiny amount, and think of all the starving children in Africa!” I’d like to see the war over Iran end very quickly, with the mad mullahs nuclear ambitions permanently destroyed, and our spending money on that stopped, but I also want to see all of the wasteful foreign aid spending stopped as well. I don’t care about percentages; I want to see the waste stopped.
Dana
Much of USAID goes to US farmers yo buy food that is then donated to other countries.
The YUGE Trump deficit was caused by USAID?
Mr Dana opposes government waste! So cut spending on foreign aid, research funding, education support, national parks, Medicaid, SNAP, FEMA, EPA, PBS, NOAA…
These cuts were ideological, not economic.
Even with all these painful cuts and the DOGE-boyz actions, out federal debt is still increasing. Where does it go? War Department, Social Security, *Medicare/Medcaid/CHIP, and of course, interest on the burgeoning debt. The rest of the spending is trivial in comparison.
Mr trump (President Russell Vought, Project 2025, OBBBA, white christian nationalists) enshrine a steep increase in federal spending on the War Department and tax cuts for the wealthy.
________________________________________________________________
*The United States has the most expensive healthcare on Earth!! Every advanced nation has less expensive and often superior healthcare!
The simp from St Louis wrote:
So what if they were? It’s still cutting spending, which is an unambiguously good thing.
Every bit of government spending cut is money not taken from the American taxpayers.
The *kunt from Kentucky typed: “…cutting spending, which is an unambiguously good thing”.
Good to know. Cut War spending in half and balance the budget. Cut all spending going to red states and balance the budget. Every trump voter should pay back all their Medicare and Social Security payments and balance the budget.
This is easy. And fun, too!
_________________________________
*kunt: This is he Brit version of cunt – comparable to “prick” and means “a fool, a dolt, an unpleasant person – of either sex”. This sense is common in New Zealand, British, and Australian English, where it is usually applied to men or as referring specifically to “a despicable, contemptible or foolish” man.
Has, or will, Mr Dana leave the Catholic church?
Bush stopped golfing during the Iraq Afghan wars
Should our Commander in Chief do the same?
I wonder how many other federal bureaucrat couple have both lost their jobs? Not enough, I’d guess.
This is the kind of thing that can happen when your livelihood is completely tied to federal government spending, and it’s a large part of the reason that formerly sensible red state Virginia is now a strongly blue state, with so many federal workers living in the DC suburbs. The biggest problem with the early term surge in closing federal offices and eliminating bureaucratic jobs is that it petered out too quickly.
I keep seeing things saying that fifty percent of the federal Department of Education employees lost their jobs, and my only reaction is that the job is only half done.
Key 2025 Spending Categories (Approximate Share of Total):
Social Security: 22%
Medicare/Medicaid/CHIP: 28%
Net Interest: 14%
National War: 19%
Income Security (SNAP, TANF, SSI, housing assistance, and unemployment): 10%
93% of total spending
Note too that much of the interest on our debt is because of War Dept spending.
In year one of Mr trump’s 2nd term we spent $7.01 trillion and collected $5.23 trillion, with a deficit of $1.78 trillion. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects a deficit of $1.9 trillion for fiscal year 2026. With all the wonderful cuts in wasteful spending, stimulatory tax cuts for bllionaires and the splendor of all those tariffs paid by foreign countries how can our defcit be getting worse?!? The fiscally responsible Repubs control Congress, the White House and the Supreme Court!!
Clearly, we are not cutting nearly enough! If we cut all the “welfare” programs (e.g., food, unemployment pay, housing, SSI etc) we can cut spending by 10% or about ($0.7 trillion) cutting the deficit by 40%!! Of course Exchequer Vought (and sockpuppet Donny) have proposed at least a 50% increase in War Dept spending!
Should we eliminate federal healthcare spending? Steep cuts to Social Security spending? It doesn’t appear that trimming around the edges will cure our budget ills.
So Rimjob is worried over federal deficits now.
Where was all of this concern during the corrupt Biden administration?
trump 45 –> about $8.4 trillion, with interest
President Biden –> about $4.7 trillion, with interest
trump 47 –> est about $8 trillion, with interest
https://www.crfb.org/blogs/how-much-did-president-trump-add-debt
https://www.crfb.org/blogs/how-much-did-president-biden-add-debt
Nice try, Rimjob.
https://www.us-debt-clock.com/presidents
Dana
You seem you
have overlooked/forgotten that the poor red states like where you live receive more money from DC then you give them. It is those liberal rich liberal states that are giving the money to DC
Your wife’s hospital? It would close without Federal money. How about a little appreciation yo those blue states that are supporting the red states?
Yeah, red states should appreciate this.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/minnesota-fraud-schemes-what-we-know/
And this.
https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/medical-fraud-fbi-justice-department/3870400/
Not to mention…
https://nypost.com/2026/04/06/us-news/californias-125-billion-high-speed-train-to-nowhere-laid-bare-in-60-minutes-report/
Yeah, thanks for all that blue state “support”, johnnie boy. Now STFU.
“they worried about the trust in the United States that was lost overseas”
If we had to pay for that trust, it wasn’t trust. It was “trust.” Like paying for a prostitute or a stripper isn’t love, it’s “love.”