A newly launched tracking tool, Lost Funds, reveals that the Trump administration has frozen or eliminated $177 billion in federal grants since the president took office for his second term. The cuts span all 50 states and the District of Columbia, with the largest disruptions affecting health, nutrition, environmental, and disaster relief programs, according to a joint analysis by the States United Democracy Center and Grant Witness.
The Lost Funds database, which aggregates verified data from USASpending.gov, documents thousands of disrupted grants, including programs for maternal health in Michigan, education research in Mississippi, and assistance to minority farmers in Iowa. The five states with the highest amounts of interrupted funding are California, Texas, New York, Illinois, and North Carolina.
Key details of the cuts
The tracking tool identifies health, nutrition, the environment, and disaster relief as the sectors most impacted by the funding freezes. The $177 billion in disrupted grants represents nearly 10% of federal discretionary spending, according to the researchers. The organizers of the database emphasize that these disruptions exceed typical administrative changes during transitions of power.
Scope and human impact
The States United Democracy Center and Grant Witness describe the disruptions as having an extraordinary scale, noting that states are now on the front lines of mitigating the effects on residents. In some cases, courts have ruled against the administration’s grant funding cuts, though the full legal and operational consequences remain ongoing.
The Lost Funds tracker is publicly accessible and will be updated regularly as the administration continues to review or modify grant allocations. Researchers behind the project state that the tool aims to provide transparency about the real-world impact of these funding decisions.