Congress restored $175 million for a manufacturing program. Its own watchdog found a quarter of the jobs it counted didn't hold up.
Summary
In January 2026, P.L. 119-74 rejected the administration's proposal to eliminate NIST's Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership and enacted $175 million — the same level Congress funded in FY2025. The case for MEP rests on numbers like the 116,767 jobs it says it created or retained in FY2022. But the Commerce Department's own inspector general sampled seven of the program's 51 Centers and found 25% of the jobs and 48% of the sales those Centers reported were unreliable — as much as 8,814 jobs and $3.5 billion in sales that shouldn't have counted.
The money
View data as table
| FY2025 enacted | $175.0M | |
|---|---|---|
| FY2026 requested | $0 | proposed elimination of federal MEP funding |
| FY2026 enacted | $175.0M | same as FY2025; P.L. 119-74 |
The FY2026 Commerce, Justice, Science appropriations bill, enacted as part of P.L. 119-74, holds MEP at $175.0 million — identical to the FY2025 enacted level and $175 million above what the administration requested. The Senate Appropriations Committee confirms the same figure. 's account is blunt about what happened in conference: the committee "did not adopt the Administration's proposal to zero out funding" for MEP. Congress, in other words, chose to keep believing the program's numbers.
The numbers Congress is believing
View data as table
| New & Retained Sales | 48% | $3,513,903,585 of $7,298,613,592 reviewed |
|---|---|---|
| Cost Savings | 49% | $256,637,261 of $526,131,430 reviewed |
| Jobs Created / Retained | 25% | 8,814 of 35,240 jobs reviewed |
| New Client Investments | 31% | $369,668,359 of $1,181,581,338 reviewed |
NIST's FY2022 economic-impact report told Congress the MEP network created or retained 116,767 jobs and $18.8 billion in new and retained sales that year. The Commerce Department Inspector General pulled a sample from seven Centers — California, Maryland, Ohio, South Carolina, Washington, Kansas, and a New York subrecipient, ITAC — together accounting for roughly 30% of the network's reported jobs that year. Reviewing 53 of those Centers' largest claims against the 2,716 completed surveys behind them, the found 48% of the $7.3 billion in sales those Centers reported — up to $3.5 billion — was "unreliable": unverified, duplicated, unrelated to any MEP service, or overstated by a client with no one checking the number. Jobs fared better but still failed a quarter of the time: 25% of the 35,240 jobs those Centers claimed, up to 8,814 jobs, did not hold up. A Maryland Center client reported nearly $1 billion in new sales and 400 jobs from a contract the found had "no connection to the services received from the Center" and hadn't even begun delivery when the client was surveyed; an Ohio subrecipient's client reported the same $3 million in sales and $5 million in investments — from services delivered back in 2019 and 2020 — as new impact in both FY2021 and FY2022. Two Center executives whose reported impacts were overstated received bonuses of $77,000 and $31,000 that year, paid from MEP funding, on performance reviews that weighted the now-discredited numbers.
The price of one job
View data as table
| NIST reported to Congress | $1,381 / job | FY2020, federal investment as published |
|---|---|---|
| OIG recalculation | $1,853 / job | FY2020, with $50M CARES Act funds included |
The 's second finding is about the denominator, not the numerator. NIST calculates MEP's return on investment — including the cost of each job created or retained — by dividing reported economic impacts by "federal investment." For FY2020, NIST's public figure was $1,381 per job. But NIST's own records show $50 million in CARES Act supplemental funding, funneled through MEP that year, contributed to the jobs and sales being counted — while NIST left that $50 million out of the "federal investment" it divided by. Put it back in and the real cost per job was $1,853 — 34% higher, the same 34% NIST's ROI figures were overstated across the board for that year. The FY2023 report has the same flaw, built around $13 million in omitted supplemental funding.
The takeaway
- The money moved on faith. Congress kept MEP at $175 million for FY2026 — rejecting elimination — using an economic-impact case NIST itself has not corrected in the two fiscal years since its own inspector general flagged it.
- A quarter isn't a rounding error. At the Centers the actually checked, 25% of claimed jobs and up to 48% of claimed sales didn't survive scrutiny. The reviewed 7 of 51 Centers; the other 44 have not been audited the same way.
- The reported price of a job is understated, not overstated, in the direction that matters for taxpayers. Leaving out $50 million in pandemic-era funding made each FY2020 job look 34% cheaper than the federal government actually paid.
This piece covers the DOC 's FY2022 sample (7 of 51 MEP Centers, about 30% of that year's reported jobs) and its FY2020–FY2023 return-on-investment recalculation. It does not audit the other 44 Centers or years outside that window. NIST concurred with six of the 's eight recommendations and did not concur with two; as of the report's September 2024 publication, corrective action had not yet been independently verified.
Sources
- Congressional Research Service, Overview of FY2026 Appropriations for Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies (CJS), R48643 (Feb. 2026) — FY2025 enacted, FY2026 requested, and FY2026 enacted MEP appropriation levels. everycrsreport.com/reports/R48643
- Public Law 119-74, Commerce, Justice, Science; Energy and Water Development; and Interior and Environment Appropriations Act, 2026 (signed Jan. 23, 2026) — the enacted FY2026 appropriations act carrying the $175 million MEP line. govinfo.gov/app/details/PLAW-119publ74
- U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations, Congress Approves 2026 Commerce, Justice, and Science Appropriations Bill — confirms the $175 million MEP figure and total CJS funding levels. appropriations.senate.gov
- U.S. Department of Commerce, Office of Inspector General, NIST Overstated MEP's Economic Impacts to Congress and Other Stakeholders, -24-037-I (Sept. 25, 2024) — FY2022 unreliable economic impacts by category (Table 1), FY2020–FY2023 return-on-investment overstatement and per-job cost recalculation (Table 2), Center executive bonuses, and NIST's response. oversight.gov (PDF)
- Manufacturing Dive, Commerce's proposed budget takes an axe to MEP. Lawmakers say the program should be saved. — reporting on the administration's FY2026 budget proposal eliminating MEP funding. manufacturingdive.com
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The Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership runs a MEP Center in every state and Puerto Rico, helping small and mid-size manufacturers adopt new processes, win contracts, and modernize equipment. Its case to Congress each year is economic: NIST surveys client companies and reports how many jobs, how much in new sales, and how much in cost savings the network produced. In its FY2026 budget request, the administration proposed eliminating MEP's federal funding entirely — the proposal "does not provide funding for the MEP program," Commerce told Congress. Lawmakers said no. What's less visible is that the evidence behind MEP's case — the jobs and sales NIST reports to justify the money — has already been tested once, by Commerce's own inspector general, and failed a meaningful share of that test.