Federal Workers Speak
When DOGE first took a chainsaw to U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in 2025, the New Hampshire WDA Chapter began gathering stories from former federal workers. We hoped to honor their work and educate the public about the scope of government work by sharing personal stories of those who served the American people.
We deliberately sought out different types of federal employees from different agencies, from civil service and foreign service to the less visible federal contractors. Their detailed stories, linked below, make starkly clear what cuts to the U.S. government have taken from us as a country and what has been lost globally.
Many hesitated to go on the record, especially those still looking for work. Months after USAID was dismantled, we found that its former workers in particular were ready to talk. We conducted the interviews remotely and edited the conversations into first-person accounts in the interviewees’ own voices, with their permission. At a time when federal workers are being accused of “waste, fraud, and abuse,” we hope that these accounts and the dedication they reflect inspire our readers as much as they have inspired us.
Federal Workers Speak is an ongoing project. If you are a former federal employee or contractor and would like to share your story, please contact us.
— Barbara Goldoftas and Katherine Towler, series editors
“I have done work in all the terrorist hotspots — Syria, Iraq, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, and Ethiopia, countries where there are armed conflicts or ideological terrorist groups such as Boko Haram and ISIS operating . . . All of these efforts were directly correlated to American safety overseas and at home.”
— Catherine Baker U.S. Agency for International Development
“My whole office was abolished . . . The Department of Education was created by Congress. I looked up every statute connected to the main responsibilities of my job. Laws said that what I did needed to be done.”
— Denise M. Joseph Department of Education
“A lot of USAID officers have stories like mine. We know what it’s like to walk into a hospital in Liberia and see a baby that would have died from malnutrition if not for food that USAID funded. We understand what it’s like to look at the face of a baby with a distended belly and know that because our country gave half of one percent of our budget to USAID, this baby will get to live its life.”
— Jason Gilpin U.S. Agency for International Development
“The U.S. was spending less than one percent of GDP on foreign assistance. What each American spent in taxes on foreign assistance on an annual basis was about $36.00 a year . . . If people had the opportunity to see firsthand what they were spending $36.00 per year on, it would be a no brainer.”
— Kate McDonald Polakiewicz U.S. Agency for International Development
“We make a lot of promises in our Constitution and in our laws and in what we say to the world. I wanted to be one of the people helping to make this country keep its promises.”
— Theora Tiffney National Institutes of Health
“Members of the public need to understand that, if they find anything easy to do online with the government, it's UX (user experience) teams that are making it happen. . . But those teams got kicked out in the last year, or they've been decimated . . . If we cut out user experience teams, then we're back to 50 years ago.”
— Sylvie Williams I.R.S. and Social Security Administration
“Reading Partners is an excellent program. . . I hope it can come back to our school system in some form. There are so many people who would be doing this type of volunteering if the opportunity were available, and there are children who need the tutoring.”
— Kathleen Spitzer Reading Partners, AmeriCorps
