Poll finds Americans back foreign aid when told it is only 1% of budget

In a Rockefeller Foundation-commissioned survey of 2,022 voters conducted June 12 to 16 by Echelon Insights and released June 30, support for foreign aid climbed to 70% from 54% after respondents were told it accounted for only 1% of the federal budget before 2025, even after a year of political attacks and deep cuts to the aid system.

In the same survey, 78% of respondents said they favored maintaining or increasing aid spending once they learned the budget share was so small. Support also widened among Republicans, rising to 58%, while self-described MAGA Republicans reached 50% support after hearing more detail.

Eight in 10 Americans want foreign aid reformed and strengthened, not eliminated. Support was strong across ages, education levels and political and religious affiliations, and Americans backed specific aid functions including disaster relief, global health, disease prevention and peacekeeping when those programs were named directly.

Donald Trump issued an executive order on January 20, 2025 freezing foreign aid for a 90-day review, followed by a stop-work order on January 24. On January 27, senior USAID career staff were placed on leave and hundreds of others were let go, and on January 28 Marco Rubio issued a limited waiver for life-saving humanitarian assistance.

More than 10,000 USAID personnel and contractors were fired, thousands of aid programs were canceled, and U.S. foreign aid disbursements fell to $47 billion in fiscal 2025 from $72 billion in fiscal 2024. A Lancet study projected more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030 if the cuts continue, and UCLA Fielding School of Public Health put the toll at more than 4.5 million additional deaths among children under 5.

John Gans, the Rockefeller Foundation project lead, said the poll showed Americans have not turned away from the world so much as from misleading assumptions about what aid costs and what it does.