The Infrastructure Investment And Jobs Act, Five Years In: What Got Built and What’s Still Stuck

When President Biden signed the bill on the South Lawn early on November 15, 2021, it was lightly raining in Washington. Senators from both parties stood so close to each other that the cameras caught them clumsily attempting to applaud simultaneously during the somewhat antiquated signing ceremony, which featured more handshakes than spectacle. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act was more accurately depicted in that picture than in any policy synopsis. A rare piece of legislation that was passed because both parties decided to move after growing weary of waiting.

The numbers themselves are so big that they quickly become meaningless. Approximately $550 billion of the $1.2 trillion that was authorized was actually new spending on top of what Congress would have funded anyhow. The remaining funds are reauthorized for transit, highway programs, and the unglamorous machinery of decades-old federal-aid road construction. Sometimes, people overlook that. American infrastructure spending was not created by the IIJA. It boosted it, rerouted it, and added elements that Congress had been covertly avoiding for years, such as an actual line item for lead pipe replacement and a real broadband program for rural communities.

Observing how unevenly the money has actually moved over the years has been fascinating. The type of spending known as formula spending, which is disbursed automatically based on established federal calculations, has been consistent. State transportation agencies were aware of how to handle it. For decades, they have been doing this. According to a Brookings analysis, by the time the law was two years old, about $306 billion had already been allocated to state coffers and direct projects. Grants that are competitive—that is, require real applications and reviews—have progressed far more slowly. At year two, about 80% of the competitive money had not yet been awarded, which is unfortunate when you consider that the law was intended to be implemented over the course of more than ten years.

Speaking with those who actually run these programs gives the impression that money isn’t the real bottleneck. It has capacity. Small towns frequently lack the engineering staff and grant writers necessary to submit a competitive application for a $4 million bridge replacement grant. Consultants can be hired by larger cities. Counties in rural areas cannot. It’s still unclear if the law will correct that imbalance in later years. Although the federal Department of Transportation has made an effort to provide technical support through programs such as DOT Navigator, there is still a gap between authorization and execution, which is evident in maps that appear surprisingly patchy when you zoom in.

It’s difficult to ignore how the political framing has changed as well. The IIJA was marketed as a bipartisan win in late 2021, one that both parties could highlight in their campaign advertisements. By the time the 2024 election came around, neither party was quite sure how to discuss it. Republicans who supported it occasionally had to contend with primary challenges. Democrats struggled to turn €65 billion for broadband” into something that could be put on a yard sign, despite their desire for credit. In the meantime, the actual construction simply continued. Paving crews appeared outside West Virginia and Pennsylvania’s small towns. Bridges resurfaced. Fiber penetrated the earth. For the most part, without much fanfare.

It might take years to determine what the IIJA really means in the long run. The Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment initiative is one of the new programs that has already pushed federal funding into areas that were hardly touched by earlier legislation. Others, such as some of the more ambitious grants for climate resilience, are still struggling. There’s a feeling that in twenty years, history will evaluate this law more on its actual status than on its signing ceremony. Headlines are outlived by roads. Infrastructure typically operates in this manner.