As Midterm Elections Near, New Report from Democracy Forward’s Civil Service Strong Outlines the Consequences of Dismantling the Federal Workforce

October 21, 2026 - Washington, D.C. — Americans are paying the price of the systematic decimation and weakening of the federal civil service, a new report from Democracy Forward’s Civil Service Strong initiative outlines. The report, titled The Cost of a Civil Service Under Attack: How People Pay the Price, examines how people and communities across the country have grown weaker, sicker, and less financially secure as a result of the Trump-Vance administration’s attacks on the nonpartisan merit-based federal civil service. Spanning 19 policy domains, it is one of the most comprehensive documentations of the harms experienced by the dismantling of the civil service to date.  

The Cost of a Civil Service Under Attack: How People Pay the Price examines how reductions in the federal workforce have weakened and, in some cases, dismantled important programs, benefits, and federal protections, including Social Security, veterans’ care, public health, consumer protection, education, food safety, environmental protection, disaster response, and national security. It concludes that nearly every community in America has been affected by the executive branch’s intentional efforts to drive experienced, nonpartisan public servants out of government.  

The harms the report outlines include: 

• Communities Face Delays in Essential Services, Including Housing Loans: Rural families seeking government-backed mortgages faced home-loan delays between 2025 and 2026. This bottleneck coincided with a severe workforce shortage at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Rural Development lost nearly 40 percent of its staff and roughly half of its loan officers. This reduction in personnel disrupted the processing pipeline for low-income rural housing loans among other critical programs. Since January 2025, the Department of Veterans Affairs has lost approximately 30,000 employees through attrition, early retirements, deferred resignations, firings, and other departures.
• Preventable Diseases Are Putting Americans at Risk: More than 4,000 cases of measles have been reported in the U.S. this year, the highest number in 35 years, as prevention efforts have been curtailed. Every person who contracts measles can infect another 12-18 people, which means that tens of thousands of Americans are at risk of contracting measles, a disease that was once eliminated. 
• Our Food Is Less Safe, Agricultural and Livestock Industries Affected: The New World screwworm returned to U.S. soil in 2026 for the first time since 1966, posing a significant risk to cattle, livestock, pets, and wildlife. The U.S. Agency for International Development specialists who worked with USDA, other federal agencies, and international partners on animal and zoonotic disease surveillance and prevention were terminated. In its own analysis, USDA projected that Texas alone could face $1.8 billion in economic damage from a potential screwworm infestation.

The report reflects the research and analysis of a deep bench of more than 25 policy and regulatory experts who have collectively served across all three branches of the federal government, the armed forces, and more than 20 federal agencies. The experts are part of the inaugural fellow class of the Civil Service Defense and Innovation Program, a flagship initiative of Democracy Forward’s Civil Service Strong program designed in response to escalating threats to the professional nonpartisan civil service.  

“Attacks on the federal workforce carry real consequences for the people who depend on government services and protections,” said Astrid Dorélien, Civil Service Fellows Program Director at Democracy Forward. “Our fellows have documented how the loss of experienced public servants and decades of institutional knowledge is putting Americans’ well-being at risk. These consequences are not abstract. Across the country, families are waiting longer for critical benefits, communities are more exposed to preventable health threats, and essential protections are eroding. This report makes clear that dismantling the civil service comes at a tremendous cost to people across America, and that understanding the full extent of these harms is essential to building a government that works better for everyone.”

In addition to documenting harms for future accountability, the report serves as an important resource to all those working to reimagine a government that serves all. It will serve as the foundation of Democracy Forward’s Future of Government Initiative, a multi-year effort to develop a blueprint for a more effective, transparent, and responsive federal government. Future publications will build on this research by advancing and incubating ideas, initiatives, and implementing pathways for a transformative government that delivers for all and meets the challenges of today and tomorrow. 

“We know that democracy depends on a government that works for all people.  Yet the systematic dismantling of the U.S. civil service has taken a wrecking ball to the promise of a government that serves and delivers for all,” said Skye Perryman, President and CEO of Democracy Forward. “This report documents the real costs of intentionally dismantling government capacity and the harms that millions of people have already faced, while also looking forward to how a modern, people-centered government can meet the challenges of the next 250 years. Protecting our democracy means building a government that is more effective, more accountable, and better equipped to serve every community for generations to come.”

Civil Service Strong was launched in December 2024 amid rising threats to the professional, nonpartisan, merit-based civil service set forth in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. It has expanded the scope and reach of its work, again on the front line of legal defenses of civil servants across the federal courts and federal agencies, and working to lay the foundations for a reimagined government that delivers for all. In February 2026, Democracy Forward joined lawmakers at the launch of the Bipartisan Federal Workforce Caucus, focused on the federal workforce and government delivery systems. 

Read the report here, download the fact sheet and toolkit, and learn more about Civil Service Strong here.

Source: Democracy Forward