More than 280,000 people have lost their jobs worldwide since the Trump administration shuttered the U.S. Agency for International Development in 2025.
Former federal workers and contractors had spent years, sometimes decades, building their careers through USAID. Here, six former USAID workers share what they have learned after abruptly losing their jobs in the year since the agency shut.
In 2019, Brian Pedersen and his husband took a one-day workshop about buying bed and breakfasts, thinking maybe later they would start one. But when Pedersen saw in early 2025 that he was losing his global health career of over 20 years, their plan moved up. In February 2025, they contacted a broker. In April, Pedersen — who worked in social and behavior change full-time with USAID-funded projects at international organizations — lost his position. By September, they bought an already-up-and-running business in Galena, Illinois: Miss Murphy’s Bed and Breakfast — soon to be Miss Murphy’s High Street Inn — is a six-bedroom house located a three-hour drive west of Chicago.