The New York Times looks into what has happened to USAID employees since that agency was shuttered, and gets out the violin:
[Amy Uccello] 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…
That is cozy.
…rely on food stamps, Medicaid and a supplemental nutrition program for women and children that helps with their now 19-month-old daughter.
Apparently quite a few former USAID employees have turned out to be more or less unemployable in the private sector. Some would say that suggests they were badly overpaid by the U.S. government.
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.
Most Americans think that cutting back on government is good. Of course, if you cut back on government you will cut back on government employment.
Naturally, the Times can’t write about USAID without repeating the myth that USAID cuts “could lead to millions of deaths” in the underdeveloped world. But then there is this:
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.
For example:
Sheryl Cowan, 57, was making $272,000 a year as a senior vice president at a U.S.A.I.D.-funded nonprofit when she was let go at the end of March 2025. Last month she had an online interview for a $19-an-hour job managing a Penzeys Spices store near her home in Falls Church, Va.
One suspects that the principal purpose of most government aid programs is not to help poor people, but rather to enrich liberal supporters of the Democratic Party.
Of course, it is always tough to read about people whose lives have taken a turn for the worse as a result of a sudden governmental action. Next, the Times should do the construction workers who were working on the Keystone Pipeline when that project was abruptly terminated by Joe Biden.
