Lawmakers in Washington voted to re-open the federal government last night, but impacts of the longest shutdown in history are likely to have a lasting impact, including in the Capital Region.
With lawmakers coming to an agreement to end the 43-day shutdown late Wednesday, some are celebrating the now-reopened valve of funding coming back to the American people. But others are highlighting that challenges will likely still remain.
President Donald Trump signed the funding bill Wednesday night, which should help restore flight schedules to full capacity and end the disruption of services to programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Despite the expected dispersal of funds, including paychecks returning to the roughly 1.4 million federal workers who have gone without pay or who were furloughed during the six-week shutdown, impacts are likely to continue.
Federal employees were directed to return to work Thursday in a memo from Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought. In that memo, Vought, thanked employees for their “continued work on behalf of the American People to usher in President Trump’s Golden Age of America.”
Melinda Person is the president of New York State United Teachers. She says members of the organization, which represents more than 700,000 people in New York’s schools, colleges, and health care facilities, will feel the impacts of the shutdown for weeks or months to come.
“Just because the shutdown is over doesn't mean our advocacy efforts are over because the SNAP cuts are still coming. Those were in the one big, beautiful bill, act that passed. And so, we can expect to see a lot more food insecurity in our students and in our communities,”
Person says teachers and other school leaders have come together in recent weeks to fill the gap in resources for families who need support. She says while kids in New York schools have access to free breakfast and lunch, their families need support to feed them outside of school hours – a concern that was exacerbated during the shutdown.
“We're going to be enhancing our efforts to do backpack programs, where we send food home with kids after school, over the weekends, during school breaks, when they're away from us for a week, we have the kids may not get enough food during those time periods,” Person said. “And so, we're going to be stepping up our efforts to make sure we take care of kids even outside of the school hours.”
Congressional Democrats had initially voted against a measure that would have kept the government open in October in an effort to fight for the extension of Affordable Care Act tax credits set to expire at the end of the year. But after eight Senators defected, the bill passed Wednesday did not directly address the issue. Instead, Republicans have agreed to hold a separate vote next month on the extension of the tax credits.
As a result of the shutdown, SNAP benefits ceased Nov. 1 before the Trump administration agreed to restore partial funding following orders from federal judges. As of Wednesday night, Electronic Benefit Transfer cards have been reloaded and participants can once again use their benefits. But despite that and support from New York state, Susan Lintner, from the Regional Food Bank, says impacts from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act are imminent.
“Able bodied adults without dependents, otherwise referred to as ABAWDs, which are people who, for one reason or another, do not work and receive benefits, they will have to either work or volunteer a certain number of hours within a three-year period in order to continue to receive SNAP benefits,” Lintner said. “Of course, we want everyone to have access and opportunities. Is for employment. But we also are aware that there are certain areas of our service area that opportunities do not exist, and now those individuals may not have access to those benefits. We also know that there are people who are primary caretakers for family members with disabilities or elderly parents who they need to care for, and those folks also will not be eligible for benefits.”
In addition to supports like subsidies and tax credits, the federal government also provides benefits to its own employees. But Katie Rader, a political science professor at the University at Albany, says with the shutdown and other moves made by the Trump administration this term, some people may be thinking twice about working for the federal government.
“I think one notable piece of this shutdown was this question mark over whether furlough workers were going to get paid. That hasn't been necessarily a part of the debate previously. And having that the continuing resolution did include that stipulation and that promise for those furloughed workers. So, I think it raises a lot of questions as they're going back to work, and it has, you know, for yes, they're going to get paid back, but I think for myself, losing 40 days of my paycheck, what kinds of things happened in that period of time that that I wouldn't necessarily get to pay back, get to Get back for their own families. This could mean sacrifices for their own their own lives.” Rader said.
