"Fragmented" is a word that usually means nothing. GAO gives it a number.
The map
GAO identified 140 federal economic development programs administered by 13 agencies. GAO surveyed these programs, 131 of which reported total obligations of about $60 billion in fiscal year 2024.
One hundred and forty doors, thirteen buildings, for a town trying to fund a business park.
The overlap test
GAO did not eyeball it. It took four programs from the Economic Development Administration — the only federal agency whose sole focus is economic development — and compared them with 29 programs run by other agencies on three dimensions: activities, beneficiaries, purpose.
All 29 programs overlapped with at least one of the EDA programs in at least one of three aspects — activities, beneficiaries, or purpose. Further, 20 programs overlapped with at least one of the EDA programs in all three aspects.
Twenty of 29 doing the same kind of thing, for the same kind of people, toward the same end.
⚠ That is overlap, not waste. Two programs can serve identical purposes and both be needed — different regions, different eligibility, different failure modes. GAO keeps overlap and duplication as separate findings, and this record keeps them separate too.
What is actually broken
The coordination that is supposed to manage the overlap:
Agency collaboration efforts, however, have stalled in recent years — even though collaboration could help the agency better manage resources and avoid duplicating efforts.
EDA is required to coordinate with the other agencies. GAO's recommendations go to restarting that, not to cutting programs — which is the cheap answer and, notably, not the one the auditor reached for.
The review exists because the Senate Appropriations Committee asked for it in the report accompanying the 2024 Commerce-Justice-Science bill. That is worth noticing on its own: a committee asked a question two years ago, and this is the answer arriving.