Sydney Martinez, Campus Carrier news editor
The United States is in the midst of its longest government shutdown, which has now lasted for 37 days. The previous longest shutdown took place during Donald Trump’s first term, for a total of 34 days.
Government shutdowns take place when Congress fails to reach an agreement on a federal spending budget before the next fiscal year. This time, Republicans hold both chambers of Congress but failed to meet the minimum requirement of 60 votes to pass the budget into law.
Democrats and Republicans have disagreed on stopgap bills due to proposed cuts in subsidies of the Affordable Care Act insurance and the continuation of Trump’s Medicaid cuts.
Congress’s 14th vote on a spending bill Tuesday, which lost 54-44, marks the continuation of the government shutdown, leaving federal workers without pay for the fourth consecutive week. Those who receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits received their full benefits for the month of October, but will receive only half of their monthly benefits for November.
Hayden Stanley, an economist at the Atlanta office Bureau of Labor Statistics, is among those who are furloughed during the government shutdown.
Stanley has been placed on furlough, meaning his job still exists. However, he is on a mandated unpaid leave due to the government’s lack of funding for his job.
“The fact that [the government shutdown] has been going on for longer than a month means that people are getting behind on their bills,” Stanley said. “If I didn’t have savings built up, then I would be struggling way more.”
Stanley works to produce economic data and checks on the labor market, releasing on a regular publication schedule. The shutdown has put the data’s release a month behind schedule, which will have negative implications for the quality of their reports.
“We don’t have funding, so we can’t do our jobs,” Stanley said. “That, in turn, affects how well we can see the economy, like ‘the pulse’ [economic data] checks that [we] get are not happening anymore.”
Stanley said government shutdown conversations come up every year. Those conversations had become more frequent in the past six months due to the lack of permanent funding bills.
“More recently, [conversations] come up every six months because that’s all Congress can agree on is what they call stopgap bills,” Stanley said. “We’ve seen this coming, really, since last year.”
Stanley said that this shutdown feels different from previous shutdowns to his older coworkers.
“My older coworkers say that this one is a bit strange, and it feels different because of how politicized it is in the federal agencies in what would typically be a non-partisan process,” Stanley said.
As an economist, Stanley remains concerned about how his job will pick up after the government shutdown, but as an American, he realizes that the shutdown impacts those who receive government benefits as well.
“You know, we can talk about who has a political advantage in holding out for the shutdown, but I think that misses the point [that] Americans are being affected by it,” Stanley said. “People are struggling.”
Junior Katie Scaramuzzo said that her mother is a beneficiary of SNAP and will receive less of her November benefits because of the shutdown. Although recipients may receive a small payment, they will not be able to use it for a few weeks, according to NBC Washington.
Scaramuzzo’s mother relies on SNAP as her sole way to get food on her plate, but because of the shutdown, she has had to use her disability checks and Social Security to provide for her own meals.
“I literally can’t help her at all,” Scaramuzzo said. “I’m just glad that at least I know one of my siblings has said that they will step up if they need to. So, my concern is, I worry about the future of this. [My mom] needs those benefits.”
During the shutdown, the federal government has not communicated with the 42 million citizens who rely on it for assistance.
“There’s been no communication whatsoever about [SNAP] other than what you hear through the news and social media,” Scaramuzzo said. “My brothers, [who told] my mom, found out through the news, but there’s been no communication from at least on the government side of things.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune was hopeful that the government would reopen during the past vote on Tuesday, but no additional Democratic senators have agreed on a stopgap funding bill to reopen the government.