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With the combination of the longest government shutdown, mass firings of government workers, and fresh cuts to federal food assistance, Capital Area Food Banks Washington is preparing for a surge in the number of people who will need its help ahead of the holiday season.
Food Bank, which serves 400 pantries and support organizations in the Northern District of Columbia Virginia and two maryland Counties are providing 8 million more meals than they prepared this budget year – an increase of nearly 20%.
Radha Muthiah, the group’s CEO and president, said the city is being hit “particularly hard” by the sequence of events that have occurred over the course of this year.
The nation’s capital has been affected by several decisions of the Trump administration, from layoffs of federal employees to ongoing law enforcement intervention in the District. The additional blow of the shutdown, which has furloughed workers and halted funding for food aid, is only deepening the economic damage.
The latest figures from the D.C. Office of Revenue Analysis do not account for changes in the workforce since the shutdown began Oct. 1. But the September jobs report showed the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate stood at 6%, compared to the most recent national rate of 4.3%, and the highest in the country for several months.
It appears that the economic crisis is having a political impact. Democrat Abigail Spanberger won election as Virginia governor on Tuesday after focusing her campaign message on the effects of the president’s donald trumpAction on the economy of the state.
Experts say the shutdown’s long-term impact on the regional economy will be felt long after the government reopens.
Local businesses are feeling the pinch
According to official figures, Washington has the largest share of federal employees in the country – about 20% – and about 150,000 federal employees call the region home. As of Monday, thousands of federal employees across the country will be missing at least two full paychecks because of the shutdown. Nationally, at least 670,000 federal workers have been furloughed, while about 730,000 are working without pay, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.
During the shutdown, the number of federal employees on Washington’s transit system each weekday has dropped by about one-quarter compared to ridership in September. The Restaurant Association of Greater Washington says eateries already struggling with low margins due to seasonal declines and Trump’s deployment of armed National Guard members to city streets face more challenges at a time when owners had hoped for an improvement.
Tracy Hayden Loh, a fellow at the think tank Brookings Metro, said going without pay is creating significant cash flow problems for federal workers, potentially leading to defaults on mortgages and student loans. For local businesses, particularly those that rely on discretionary spending from federal employees, the impact could be magnified during high sales in the October-December quarter.
“A lot of businesses are counting on higher spending in the fourth quarter to have a revenue positive year,” Loh said.
Small businesses are feeling the brunt of that spending.
The crowd watching Liverpool’s Premier League game last weekend was standing room only at The Queen Vic, a bar in Northeast Washington. But that wasn’t the case, said Ryan Gordon, co-owner of the British pub.
“We still had seats for people, which means the bars around us that get our overflow got nothing,” Gordon said.
Business That’s about 50% less than before the shutdown, he said. He considers himself lucky in the local restaurant scene because he owns the building and doesn’t have to pay rent.
“The extent to which discretionary spending by D.C. area households is limited could put a lot of local businesses at risk,” Loh said. The culmination of the shutdown, cuts to SNAP benefits and layoffs is having a huge impact on families who may have never sought help in the first place, she said.
A family is driven out of the area
Thea Price was fired from her job at the US Institute of Peace in March this year, part of a wave of layoffs aimed at downsizing the federal government. Her husband, a government contractor, also lost his job at a museum. Since then, they have been living on savings, Medicaid and SNAP.
Price, 37, recently visited a food pantry in Arlington, Virginia, for the first time. The shutdown halted funding for SNAP, which took several months for her to receive, and also stopped the $500 payment she was supposed to receive each month. Virginia sent a partial payment but it was not enough, Price said. With options running out to support herself and her family, Price is moving back to her hometown in the Seattle area.
“We can no longer afford to stay in this area and hope something happens,” he said. “We are in a very different place than when these things started in March.”
At the Capital Area Food Bank in Northeast Washington, forklifts were moving around in controlled chaos, unloading trucks, moving food and preparing for distribution to federal employees and contractors, and preparations are ramping up with the holiday season in mind. The organization is hoping to provide 1 million more meals this month than before the shutdown.
“We’re obviously very focused today on the immediacy of all these impacts and on getting food to those in need,” said Muthiah, the group’s director. But he cautioned that the unfolding crisis will have long-term implications, with people using their savings and retirement funds to make ends meet.
“People are borrowing against their future to be able to pay for basic needs today,” he said.
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Associated Press video journalist Nathan Algren contributed to this report.