WASHINGTON (AP) — A combination of longest government shutdownmass layoffs of government employees; A new perspective on federal food assistanceWashington’s Metropolitan Food Bank is bracing for a surge in people needing assistance before the holiday season.
The food bank serves 400 pantries and aid organizations in two counties in the District of Columbia, Northern Virginia, and Maryland, and has provided 8 million more meals than it had prepared for this budget year. This is an increase of almost 20%.
“Cities have been particularly hard hit due to the series of events that have taken place this year,” Radha Muthiah, the group’s CEO and president, said in a statement.
The nation’s capital has been hit by a series of decisions by the Trump administration. From layoffs of federal employees to Continued law enforcement intervention Enter the district. The economic fallout from the government shutdown, which includes furloughing workers and cutting off funding for food aid, will only deepen the economic fallout.
The latest numbers from the D.C. Office of Revenue Analysis do not take into account changes in the workforce since the government shutdown began on October 1. But even in September’s employment report, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate remained at 6%, with the most recent national unemployment rate at 4.3%, the highest in the nation in recent months.
The economic crisis appears to be having an impact on politics as well. Democrat Abigail Spanberger won Tuesday’s race for Virginia governor after focusing her campaign message on the impact of President Donald Trump’s actions on the state’s economy.
Experts say the long-term effects of a government shutdown on local economies will be felt long after the government reopens.
Local businesses feeling the crisis
Washington has the largest percentage of federal employees in the country (about 20%, according to official statistics), with approximately 150,000 federal employees based in the region. By Monday, hundreds of thousands of federal workers across the country will miss at least two full paychecks due to the government shutdown. At least 670,000 federal employees nationwide have been furloughed, and about 730,000 are working without pay, according to the federal government. Bipartisan Policy Center.
During the shutdown, the number of federal employees using Washington’s transit system on weekdays fell by about a quarter compared to September ridership. Restaurants, already coping with modest profits from a seasonal decline and the fallout from President Trump’s deployment of armed National Guard troops to city streets, are facing additional challenges at a time when owners were hoping for a rebound, according to the Greater Washington Restaurant Association.
Tracy Hadden Roe, a fellow at the Brookings Metro think tank, said living without pay poses serious cash flow problems for federal employees and can lead to defaults on mortgages and student loans. For local businesses, especially those that rely on federal employees’ discretionary spending, the impact could be worse in the busy October-December period.
“Many companies rely on increased spending in the fourth quarter to have a positive revenue year,” Lo said.
Small businesses are feeling the loss of that spending.
Spectators watching Liverpool’s Premier League match last weekend would have been standing room only at the Queen Vic bar in northeast Washington. But that wasn’t the case, said British Pub co-owner Ryan Gordon.
“We still had seating for people, which means the surrounding bars that receive our overflow don’t get anything,” Gordon said.
He said business is down about 50% from before the shutdown. He considers himself lucky in the local restaurant industry because he owns the building and doesn’t have to pay rent.
“As long as discretionary spending by D.C.-area households is limited, many local businesses could end up in the red,” Roe said. He added that the height of the government shutdown, reductions in SNAP benefits and layoffs are weighing heavily on households that have never asked for help before.
family is forced out of the area
Thea Price was fired from her job at the U.S. Institute of Peace in March as part of a layoff aimed at downsizing the federal government. Her husband, a government contractor, also lost his job at the museum. Since then, they have been living on savings, Medicaid and SNAP.
Price, 37, recently went to a food pantry in Arlington, Virginia, for the first time. It took several months to get SNAP funding, but the shutdown meant that SNAP funding stopped and the $500 monthly payments they received were also scheduled to stop. Price said Virginia made some payments, but not enough. With no options left to support herself and her family, Price plans to return to her hometown in the Seattle area.
“We can’t afford to stay in this area any longer, so we’re hoping something works out,” she said. “We’re in a much different situation than we were in March when all this started.”
Preparations have been stepped up with the holiday season in mind at the Metropolitan Food Bank in Northeast Washington, where forklifts whirl around in controlled chaos, unloading trucks, moving food and preparing distribution set up for federal employees and contractors. The organization expects to serve 1 million more meals this month than expected before the shutdown.
“We’re obviously very focused on the immediacy of all these impacts today and getting food to the people who need it,” said Muthia, the group’s director. But she warned that the ongoing crisis has long-term implications, with people using up their savings and retirement funds to make ends meet.
“People are using futures to borrow money to pay for basic necessities today,” she said.
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Associated Press video journalist Nathan Ellgren contributed to this report.
