According to the Science and Community Impacts Mapping Project (SCIMaP), the White House FY 2026 budget proposal cuts NIH research funding by $18 billion compared to FY 2024. The budget cuts are projected to lead to widespread economic and job losses in counties across the country. Upwards of 200,000 high-quality jobs in medical research are disappearing and going abroad, writes data analyst Joshua Weitz, “for no reason other than [that] Project 2025 [and] HHS leadership want to dismantle world-class NIH funded research in communities nationwide.”
JOSHUA WEITZ; [email protected], @joshuasweitz
Weitz is a professor of biology and Clark Leadership Chair in data analytics at the University of Maryland.
Weitz told the Institute for Public Accuracy: “The SCIMaP group has released a series of updates that focus on the economic impacts of the White House’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2026. The proposed FY 2026 cuts include massive cuts to science funding at the NIH, NSF, NASA, and beyond. The takeaway number is that the White House has proposed a 40 percent cut to medical research funding. These big topline numbers are often listed in a table in some budget proposal somewhere. We have gone back and said what this will look like in every congressional district in every state.
“When you hear that NIH is being cut by 40 percent, that ripples well beyond Bethesda, Maryland. The NIH partially does its own research, but it also fulfills its mission through extramural programs, by evaluating proposals submitted by principal investigators throughout the U.S. to conduct research outside the NIH campus. That is the major way medical research gets funded in the U.S. through NIH investment… What gets into the news are the Ivy League institutions like Harvard, Columbia, and Brown. But the impacts [of these cuts] go well beyond those institutions. The targets are everywhere. On our map, you can look at the research triangle near Raleigh, or toward Houston, Baylor College of Medicine and the UT [University of Texas] system. You can look to Pittsburgh, to Birmingham, to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota or to Phoenix and Tucson. These are all places beyond the headlines that will be significantly impacted if the budget is passed this way.” In North Carolina, for instance, the economic losses could total $3 billion.
Weitz added: “If this were to pass as proposed, funding rates and levels would go down dramatically. Slashing federal support of labs nationwide by 40 percent would mean that at state and district levels, people would start to feel this pain. Funds won’t be flowing into individual labs; labs that rely on funding may have to shut down or downsize, meaning job losses. There are economic and job losses.
“Our key update [to the map] are new scorecards that list the economic loss by district… Especially now, at the end of the August [congressional] recess, it is vitally important that individuals who care about the state of American science––our innovation economy, our leadership role not just in health and medical research but also national security––make clear what the consequences are for the White House’s vision of America’s future.”