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Most agree that the aftermath of the pullout of USAID is likely to extend beyond the present crisis and have lasting impact for decades to come. A great deal of media analysis and attention has been on how the pullout of funding destabilizes conflict zones, removes the provision of life-saving medication for many across the globe, and puts the poorest of the poor in danger of food insecurity and famine. These are not, however, the only kinds of long-term collateral damage engendered by the Trump administration’s sweeping erasure of USAID funding. Another aspect of the long-term fallout from this upheaval also deserves our attention: the collapse of the micro-economies that surround the aid industry.
In February 2025, American USAID employees joined the ranks of federal employees who found that, despite their years of loyal service to their agency, their work was first denigrated by the president and his appointed officials and then blocked altogether. USAID employees, who generally see their work as a vocation fueled by a spirit of service to their country as well as international humanitarianism, not simply a means of earning a paycheck, were appalled by accusations of USAID being rife with waste and corruption and run by “radical left lunatics”. Most USAID workers that I have interviewed over my years of studying international development describe tremendous personal sacrifices they have made to do public sector humanitarian work. Though they acknowledge the inconveniences and often maddening bureaucratic hurdles of working for USAID, they continue in this career because they believe that their work is making the world better in ways that benefit the US taxpayer as well. To find their work disposed of overnight in a way that failed to acknowledge any of its value was disorienting and devastating. Three therapists and life coaches of humanitarian workers that I spoke to in the last few weeks all used the term “moral injury” to describe the psychological impact of this phenomenon, borrowing the framework used primarily in discussing the complex aftermath of conflict for military veterans who may have been witness to, or participated in, events that go against their own moral code.
Yet the consequences go far beyond the direct employees of USAID. USAID was, until a few months ago, the largest humanitarian operator globally. In 2023, the US provided over 40% of all humanitarian assistance globally. That means that countless other international NGOs, religious NGOS, and small-scale local NGOs depend on that funding to do their work. These organizations have also been profoundly crippled and in some cases decimated by the sudden cuts to USAID funding. Furthermore, subsequent to the US’s action, the UK also announced cuts to foreign aid and the UN announced their own reorganization that would consolidate and shrink programming, resulting in an end to many ongoing programs and fewer jobs. Almost all aid workers globally are reeling from these changes as their projects are canceled, consultancy contracts terminated, partner organizations close, colleagues are fired, or as they find themselves suddenly without work and without the prospect of new employment on the horizon.
The website USAidStopWork.com is tracking job loss numbers. At the time of this writing, it estimates that 19,519 Americans have lost their jobs, but that 233,818 jobs have been lost globally. In the more than 60 countries where USAID is operative, the development industry employs thousands of local people, not only directly in development programming, but in staffing positions including administrative support, accountants, caseworkers, and the security guards and janitorial staff of offices, as well as the drivers of those SUVs. These local staff and international contractors who lost employment due to the USAID withdrawal were not offered the severance packages, relocation assistance and other paltry concessions from the US government. Some ministries of employment in these countries are looking into the legality of these abrupt terminations. These former workers have found themselves abruptly cut off from their livelihood and in some cases facing the loss of ability to stay in the country where they are working.
Yet even this large number is likely a gross underestimate of jobs lost. What my recent book, Aid and the Help: International Development and the Transnational Extraction of Care (Stanford 2023), makes clear is that in addition to direct local employees of aid agencies, other kinds of workers are also part of the international aid economy. Countless local people work in and around the homes of international aid workers. The nannies, maids, personal chauffeurs, security guards, cooks and gardeners of aid workers find employment in the steady presence of aid workers doing the kinds of projects funded by USAID in their countries. Their reproductive labor makes possible the formal work of international aid practitioners throughout the developing world in ways that are generally underacknowledged and untheorized. It is not surprising that the impact of this fallout on these workers is not receiving attention as we largely focus on US federal employees and on the recipients of USAID project dollars. These thousands of workers who are seeing their livelihoods disappear are just one other part of the fallout of these devastating cuts.
Development Studies scholars, particularly anthropologists of development, tend to be highly critical of the development industry for its imperialist foundations, ongoing coloniality, and its dubious investment in making real change in issues of global equity. Many of these critics may be curious to see how this radical upheaval could lead to systemic change and new formulations of power, agency, and mutual aid. Few, however, could celebrate the devastating short and long-term impact on local workers in and around the development sector who have come to depend on its steady source of employment, however gig-based and precarious. These workers will have the fewest resources to contend with this withdrawal and the effects will ripple through their families and communities.