Frequently asked questions

Our primary criterion for qualifying as an impact area is that the funding disruption must directly affect state-based entities. This includes private organizations, businesses, and educational institutions in addition to state and substate government and tribal offices. Impact areas coalesce around shared affected communities, programs, and funding streams.

We become aware of potential impact areas by tracking the following channels:

1. reported science agency terminations tracked in the Grant Witness project
2. litigation filings where affected plaintiffs have outlined specific disruptions
3. press coverage
4. patterns that emerge in federal spending data
5. new executive actions, including EOs and pocket rescissions
6. through other organizations’ disruption trackers

There are a few reasons state disruption numbers or trackers may read differently from what is on Lost Funds:

1. Our method compares expected spending to actual spending and is based on a limited fiscal year scope, beginning with the start of the second Trump administration through the latest update to the site. Some state trackers are reporting a disruption to spending over the whole life of awards, which can include future fiscal years. Think of our disruption calculation as a snapshot in time: the currently disrupted amount. Said another, the amount of money recipients should have today that they do not have today.

2. Our method focuses on disruptions originating in the executive branch that represent an unprecedented infringement on Congressional spending power. Therefore Lost Funds does not calculate funding changes stemming from OBBBA or other legislative action, whereas some states are including legislative changes.

3. Our disruption calculations rely on data reported in USAspending. States may derive their disruption calculations from internal data.

4. For formula grants, states include estimated allocations in their disruption figures and their estimation method may differ from our expected spend estimates.

5. Our impact area identification method may have combined multiple programs that states have reported out individually.

Awards or programs that get terminated will have their funds drawn down to zero. Sometimes the amount clawed back will include funding received before 2025, which we don’t count in our expected numbers.

We see changes to the loss figures we’ve calculated as updates to spending data are published and we update numbers based on the new reports. We also expect to see changes resulting from the end of fiscal year 2026 and from restoration of funding after litigation.

We tally the number of states fighting back by identifying court cases that implicate an area of funding disruption and counting the states that have joined as plaintiffs.