The Trump administration's dismantling of USAID's workforce
Overview · reviewed October 28, 2026
In February 2025 the Trump administration moved to dismantle the US Agency for International Development, pulling almost all of its workers off the job and out of the field worldwide and all but ending a six-decade mission of fighting starvation and disease abroad.[1]A plan presented that month would leave fewer than 300 of its 8,000 direct hires,[2] and by late February all but a fraction of staff had been put on leave.[3]
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A plan presented that month would leave fewer than 300 of its 8,000 direct hires,[2] and by late February all but a fraction of staff had been put on leave.[3]
Coverage over time
Share of tracked outlets · weekly (UTC)
19%0%
Feb 20252026this week
LeftCenterRightLighter bar: this week so far
Each bar is the share of the outlets on our Left / Center / Right rating scale that we tracked publishing that week which carried reporting on this story, split by the outlets' ratings. We track more outlets now than in the archive, so a share keeps earlier and later weeks comparable. An outlet counts once a week however much it published, and outlets in one ownership or syndication group count as one on each side they appear on. A rating describes the outlet, not the report. A gap means no such reports were collected that week, not that nothing was reported anywhere. Weeks run Monday to Sunday in UTC, so a report published on a Sunday evening in US Eastern time counts in the next week. 2 more outlets off the scale (not rated, or outside the left-right graphs) also reported; they are not in this chart. See them.
Weekly counts, outlets and reports (3 weeks with coverage)
Outlets on the rating scale that carried this story each week, of the outlets tracked that week, newest first
Week of (UTC)
Left
Center
Right
Of tracked
Share
Receipts
Feb 24, 2025
9
16
5
30 of 197
15%
Feb 17, 2025
4
7
3
14 of 194
7%
Feb 3, 2025
13
18
6
37 of 190
19%
Latest coverage
The newest reporting in this story's record.
Feb 22, 2025 · first reported · Headline from ABC 7 San Francisco
A federal judge, Carl Nichols, at first blocked an order giving thousands of overseas workers placed on leave just 30 days to move home,[4] but he later cleared the way for the administration to pull staff off the job.[5] On February 24 the agency told all but a fraction of its workers worldwide that they were on leave, as the dismantling moved toward its final phases.[3]
