KVIG Informative

The nation’s civil engineers gave America’s roads, bridges, water systems and power grid the highest overall grade in the history of their report card this year. The grade was a C.

The American Society of Civil Engineers raised the nation’s overall infrastructure grade to a C in its 2025 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, up from a C-minus in 2021 and the highest cumulative grade the organization has issued since it began the quadrennial assessment in 1998.

The report, which grades 18 categories from aviation to wastewater on an A-to-F scale, found none of them earned a D-minus for the first time in the report’s history. Ports scored highest, at a B; stormwater and transit scored lowest, both at D.

ASCE credited the improvement largely to the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which began distributing federal funding to states in 2022. Eight of the 18 categories improved since 2021, including dams, hazardous waste, inland waterways, levees, ports, public parks and roads.

Two categories moved the other way. Energy was downgraded despite record federal spending, which ASCE attributed to growing capacity constraints and demand from electrification and data centers outpacing transmission and grid modernization.

Even with the improvement, ASCE estimates the country needs $9.1 trillion in total investment between 2024 and 2033 to bring every category to a state of good repair. Projected public and private funding over that period totals about $5.4 trillion, leaving a $3.7 trillion gap — up from the $2.6 trillion gap ASCE calculated four years earlier.

The math carries a real price tag either way, ASCE says. Sustaining current investment levels would save the average American household about $700 a year in reduced breakdowns, delays and emergency repairs. Reverting to pre-2021 federal investment levels, by contrast, could cost the economy roughly 344,000 jobs in a single snapshot year and $5 trillion in lost economic output.

The IIJA’s authorizations expire in 2026, and ASCE says the funding behind this year’s improved grade is not guaranteed to continue. The report card the group issues in 2029 will be the first real test of whether the last four years of investment mark a turning point or a plateau.