The federal government’s science workforce lost nearly 95,000 employees, 11.9%, between September 2024 and December 2025, according to a new analysis from the Partnership for Public Service. The nonpartisan good government group found that more than a third of civil servants who have recently been laid off worked at a science agency.
Agencies in the Partnership’s analysis include the National Institutes of Health, Food and Drug Administration, National Park Service and NASA.
Analysts found that agencies government-wide in fiscal 2025 obligated $16.5 billion in scientific research and development contracts, which is a 23% decrease from fiscal 2024. Likewise, there was a 24% reduction between the two fiscal years in spending on science agency project grants, bringing the total to $112.6 billion.
“Over the years, federal investment in science has driven extraordinary scientific advances, safeguarded communities facing public health threats and fueled economic growth,” according to a Partnership press release. “Today, the Trump administration’s arbitrary and haphazard actions have set back many of these important endeavors, jeopardizing our nation’s research and development pipeline and harming the academic, nonprofit and private institutions that are engaged in critical activities to benefit the public.”
Looking at specific agencies, obligations for scientific research and development contracts at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service went down by 100% between fiscal 2024 and 2025. During the same period, spending on such contracts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention decreased by 79%.
While much of the federal workforce has been subject to upheaval since the start of Trump’s second term, CDC has been particularly impacted. The agency has lost about a quarter of its staff, its Trump-appointed director was fired after only about a month on the job and a shooter upset about the COVID-19 vaccine fired at CDC headquarters in August 2025, killing a responding police officer.
The Partnership reported, however, that not all spending was cut. Obligations for research contracts at the FDA grew by 72% between fiscal 2024 and 2025 and spending on such contracts at the National Institute of Standards and Technology increased by 108% during the same period.
Data for this analysis came from OPM federal workforce databases and USASpending.gov, which includes information on grants and contracts.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Across fiscal 2026 appropriations bills, Congress largely rejected Trump’s proposed budget cuts to science agencies. For example, Trump requested that lawmakers cut spending on science programs at NASA in half, but appropriators mostly kept existing funding levels in place.
Still, the Trump administration has managed to slash government science spending by canceling grants at agencies like NIH and the National Science Foundation.
Science reported that more than 10,000 individuals with STEM Ph.D.s left government service in 2025.