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A Generational Opportunity for Civic Engagement

The Partnership for Public Service began studying public perception of the federal government in 2021 and since then we have found that many Americans are largely unaware of the important work of the government and our nation’s civil servants. That may be changing. The Trump administration’s unilateral and indiscriminate cuts to federal funding, personnel and programs have attracted attention to the often invisible parts of our government. This unexpected increase in public attention presents a generational opportunity — a rare chance to build lasting civic understanding of the work government does and why it matters.

Indicators of Public Interest

Several data points may be early indicators of an increase in public interest and knowledge about the federal government and its work.

The Partnership’s polling shows that views of civil servants are at their highest point since we began asking these questions in 2021. This year, 61% of Americans agree that civil servants “are committed to helping people like me,” an increase of 11 points from 2021. In addition, 65% agree that “most civil servants are competent,” an increase of 10 points from 2021.

Another indicator of public interest includes tracking web searches. A review of Google searches during the past five years shows spikes in searches for “civil servants” and “public servants” during the past two years and particularly since last fall.

In addition, there has been extensive national and local reporting about the consequences of the administration’s cutbacks that has drawn attention to the role and importance of a wide range of government programs and services.

In our analysis of how communities are tracking and understanding the impact of diminished federal capacity, we found 10 issues in which information about federal workers, funding and programs has been highlighted across the country.

Federal Cuts Breaking Through

Beginning in spring 2025, the Partnership has been tracking local news articles on federal program and workforce cuts and including this information in our Cost to Your Community and Cost of Cutting American Science interactive tools.

Some of the tracked impacts are unique to a given community, but most follow trends visible across the country. Together, this reporting tells a story of communities harmed through cuts to public health funding, food safety, agricultural support, infrastructure, public safety and scientific research.

It is important to note that the exact status of funding is often in flux as various cuts are challenged in court and, in some cases, permanently or temporarily restored. While some organizations and local entities have eventually received some or all of their expected federal funding, the chaos and uncertainty of the process have, in themselves, caused significant harm.

“We lost a quarter of our budget overnight with just the snap of a finger,” Nichole Dawsey, executive director of the Addiction Prevention Coalition in Homewood, Ala., told us. “The general funding uncertainty permeates everything we do these days. I have definitely held off on new initiatives and hiring because of it.”

Dawsey’s experience is not unique. We cataloged hundreds of local news headlines about projected layoffs, service reductions or organization closures due to the federal cuts.

Here are some of the trends we have seen in communities across the country and areas where awareness of the federal government’s work may be growing.

Foodborne illness tracking.

The ongoing outbreak of cyclospora, a foodborne parasite, has sickened people across at least 15 states. Dr. Joel Barratt, who headed the federal lab that identifies parasitic outbreaks, told CNN he resigned in September 2025 over Trump administration staffing cuts. “The response is being hampered by the loss of specialized staff and the loss of hands-on-deck needed to identify the source of the outbreaks,” he said. The workforce in agencies supporting food safety decreased by 22% between September 2024 and December 2025. Newsweek reported that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2025 scaled back a federal-state partnership network designed to monitor and report on food poisoning infections, a critical tool for surveillance and early detection of foodborne illness outbreaks. As most states fund their food safety and outbreak programs through FDA and CDC grants, funding cuts have hit state and local response capacity directly with Kentucky’s Cabinet for Health and Family Services losing 30% to 50% of its food safety staff.

Livestock disease detection and prevention.

Experts told us that farms across the American southwest are being hit hard by the resurgence of the New World screwworm, which, despite its name, is actually a fly whose larvae infest and kill cattle. For half a century, a federal program operated facilities that produced sterile flies for release into the wild in strategic areas in Central America, limiting the species’ ability to reproduce, which effectively kept the flies at bay. “This particular threat had been contained,” Joe Maxwell, president of the Farm Action Fund told us. But those facilities are useless if no one is there to run them. Deep staffing cuts at the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service left the agency hobbled. “You don’t have the intel on the ground, the boots on the ground,” Maxwell said. That left the administration struggling to get the situation back under control and left farmers facing difficult and expensive choices with no assurances that the outbreak will abate. “You just don’t want to invest in rebuilding or building back up your herd,” Maxwell said. “That’s the issue. Too much risk, too much uncertainty.”

Cuts to public health authorities.

Funding cuts to the Department of Health and Human Services have resulted in layoffs and reduced services at local health departments across the country. The CDC alone cut $6.8 billion in grants. State and local health departments as well as foundations and other nonprofits have been forced to reduce their workforces and suspend or reduce services like vaccination clinics and testing. Dr. Philip Huang, director of Dallas County Health and Human Services, told us that his organization lost more than $4 million in federal funding that resulted in layoffs and the cancellation of 50 community vaccination drives at a time when measles cases in the area were quickly rising among the unvaccinated. KVOA in Tucson, Ariz., reported that the Southern Arizona AIDS Foundation had lost nearly $2 million in federal funding and would cut back treatment and prevention programs in the community.

Empty shelves at food banks.

We have tracked deep funding cuts to food banks in nearly every state nationwide, leaving food banks with less food to distribute as food insecurity in the country continues to rise. A USDA Economic Research Service Household Food Security report found that 13.7% of all U.S. household were food insecure at some point in 2024. Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida told Spectrum News 13 that it lost 910,000 meals due to federal funding cuts. Much the same occurred at the Greater Cleveland Food Bank in Ohio, where WOIO reported that the Department of Agriculture had canceled a delivery of more than 500,000 pounds of food to the local organization. Greta Faworski, the associate director of Kalamazoo Loaves & Fishes in Kalamazoo, Mich., told us that her organization was seeing only half of their typical federal funding support. “No private foundation, individual or corporation can replace the support of the federal government,” she said.

Access to fresh food in schools.

The elimination of the Department of Agriculture’s Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement program meant less fresh, local produce on the menu at schools around the country. Ripon, Wis., farmer Tracy Linz told CNN that the program’s termination not only harmed students but, alongside cuts to another USDA program, cost them 25% of their annual revenue. Alan Deal, an apple grower in Alexander County, N.C., told WUNC that he had sold his produce to local schools for about 20 years through the program and that it had benefited both children and the local economy while also keeping his business afloat. “We need to sell every, every box that we pick in order to make it, and the school systems, the food hubs, they’re a large part of that,” Deal said.

Harms to farmers’ bottom lines.

The Department of Agriculture also ended its Local Food Purchase Assistance program, which was a significant source of income for farmers across the country. Over $365 million in funding from the program supported the purchase of food from over 13,000 producers. Dan Perkins, a farmer in northwest Indiana, told the Indianapolis Star that he had hired staff and expanded his facilities with the promise of federal funds through the program, only to see that money disappear. KAIT in Arkansas reported that more than 40 farms across the state had seen massive hits to their bottom lines with the program’s termination. And a family farm in Phoenix told ABC 15 Phoenix that they would have to significantly scale back operations without the federal funds.

Stalled or canceled infrastructure and resilience projects.

Across the country, local projects aimed at community revitalization or addressing often longstanding issues with flooding and other natural disasters saw millions in federal funding halted. A project in Dorchester, Mass., which would have protected tens of thousands of local residents from future flooding saw $23 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency funding halted until the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program was reinstated in March 2026. Another project in Florida’s Miami-Dade and Broward counties that would have protected more than 1 million residents was similarly stalled, as was an $87 million St. George, Utah, project to reconnect neighborhoods split by a highway.

Weather forecasting cutbacks.

Staffing reductions at National Weather Service forecasting offices around the country continue to present challenges more than a year later. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which NWS is part of, has lost over 2,500 federal workers since the beginning of fiscal year 2025. CBS News reported in July 2026 that many of the departures were highly experienced meteorologists who accepted deferred resignation offers, which has left outside observers worried about the agency’s readiness for severe summer weather. “I think the National Weather Service is going through some growing pains at the current time, with the loss of late-career experience,” former NWS meteorologist Brian LaMarre told CBS. Beyond routine forecasting, specialized efforts to understand and predict weather patterns have been hampered or eliminated. Rick Thoman, an Alaska climate specialist at the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Preparedness, told us that his center depends on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s daily launches of weather balloons in the area to provide forecasts to remote rural and tribal areas in Alaska — launches that have been halted. “While this loss of upper-air observations has the most immediate impact in Alaska, this affects weather models around the world every day,” Thoman said.

University research grant cancellations.

Hundreds of universities saw federal grants for all kinds of research disappear and with it many jobs at universities. The University of California Santa Barbara ended a research project into local tectonic activity. Dr. Steve Nelson, then the chancellor of Louisiana State University Health New Orleans, told us his lab lost $5 million that was dedicated to researching infectious and chronic diseases, including HIV. University of Wisconsin-Madison had its federal funding cut by 17%. “We’re losing a generation of scientists that are not going to be trained,” Nicolas Bambach, a researcher at the University of California-Davis told us. Johns Hopkins laid off about 110 employees. The University of Maryland, Baltimore laid off 30 employees due to reduced funding. Universities from Harvard to Pittsburgh imposed hiring freezes. Universities are often among the largest employers in their communities and every dollar in NIH research funding generates over $2.57 in economic activity. When awards vanished, the canceled research and the layoffs and hiring freezes that followed hit not just the labs but the local economies built around them. An economic analysis from the Partnership estimates that NIH research cuts cost more than $1.26 billion in lost economic activity.

Weakened disease surveillance and response.

The Washington Post reported that in April 2025, the Department of Health and Human Services had closed “the only U.S. facility that could perform the sophisticated genetic sequencing needed to investigate hepatitis outbreaks,” firing all 27 of the lab’s scientists while closing another lab focused on sexually transmitted infections that was the only source for testing and tracking so-called “super gonorrhea,” and firing staff working there. Two months later, the administration quietly reversed course and rehired the fired scientists from both labs, one of many examples where draconian and haphazard cuts made by DOGE had to be undone because of the dramatic public impact. Brookings found more than 25,000 instances in which the administration fired and then hired employees back, which the Partnership estimates cost $12.1 million.

What’s Next

The challenge ahead is to ensure that these potential signs of increased interest and knowledge in the federal government does not lead to further dissatisfaction with the American system of government, particularly since many stories showcase how the current mismanagement of our government is creating harm.

Instead, it will be critical to capitalize on this heightened public awareness by marshaling bipartisan support to reinvigorate and rebuild our government in better and more constructive ways to meet the country’s pressing needs.

A recent report from the Partnership pointed to six priorities for better government — identified by members of the public — that could lay the foundation for such change. This means building a government that understands and is responsive to the average needs of Americans; that serves the public good over money, corporations or special interests; and that effectively identifies and works to solve the country’s greatest problems. It also means having a government in which leaders work together regardless of politics and focus on improving management of the government to make it more effective and efficient. Our Government for a New Era initiate also creates a roadmap to reform the operations of our government and to bring about transformational change.

The road ahead will not be easy, but there is an opportunity to harness these early indicators of public interest to bring about long overdue transformational changes regarding how our government operates and serves the public interest.

Learn more about our public perception research