As the federal government shutdown passes the one-month mark, a new round of impacts is set to hit millions of Americans on Saturday.
A chief concern for lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in recent weeks was the impending lapse in funding for SNAP benefits, colloquially known as food stamps, for which millions of people were set to lose benefits on Saturday.
Over 40 million Americans rely on SNAP benefits to purchase food, leading to concerns from elected officials that millions could go hungry. Governors and other state leaders from dozens of states across the country have said that they will free up emergency funds in their states to temporarily assist families that usually rely on their SNAP benefits to purchase food.
A coalition of municipalities, nonprofit groups and business and union organizations sued earlier this week, requesting that a federal judge in Rhode Island force the Trump administration to use contingency funds in the U.S. Department of Agriculture to pay out SNAP benefits.
On Friday, U.S District Judge John McConnell did just that, ordering the USDA to distribute money from a contingency fund “as soon as possible,” in time for Nov. 1 SNAP payments to be made.
Despite the ruling, issued from the bench just hours before the Nov. 1. deadline, SNAP benefits are likely to be delayed. McConnell asked the Trump administration for an update on Monday on its efforts to pay out SNAP benefits. President Donald Donald Trump said later Friday that he directed lawyers for the administration to seek clarity but that “even if we get immediate guidance, it will unfortunately be delayed while States get the money out.”
We’d like to hear from you about how you’re experiencing the government shutdown, whether you’re a federal employee who can’t work right now, a person who relies on federal benefits like SNAP, or someone who is feeling the effects of other shuttered services in your everyday life. Please contact us at [email protected] or reach out to us here.
Another program that will be forced to shutter in states across the country is Head Start, which provides free learning programs, health screenings and meals to young children from low-income families. Over 130 Head Start programs that serve almost 59,000 children around the nation did not receive their federal funding on Saturday and will close their doors if they cannot find alternative funding for the duration of the shutdown.
Senate lawmakers left town earlier this week after failing again to negotiate a path out of the shutdown. While most Senate Republicans and some Democrats have repeatedly voted on a stopgap funding measure that would fund the government through Nov. 21 and has already passed in the House, the measure has failed so far to reach the 60-vote threshold for passage.
Senate Democratic leaders say that they won’t vote alongside GOP lawmakers to reopen the government without some kind of deal to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies, which expire at the end of the year.
On Saturday, open enrollment for health insurance plans under the ACA — which cover more than 24 million Americans — began, revealing to customers how much their premiums could spike next year without an extension of the subsidies.
One analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that insurers are raising premiums by an average of 17% or 30%, depending on whether the states they’re in are using the federal marketplace or individual state marketplaces.
Those price hikes, combined with the expiration of enhanced subsidies, could lead to premiums jumping by 114% on average for Americans using the ACA and could lead to millions of people going uninsured over the next eight years.
Americans traveling by air this weekend could experience delays in transit due to staffing shortages at airports after air traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration workers received their first zero-dollar paycheck earlier this week.
Pressure on lawmakers over airport staffing shortages helped end the 2019 government shutdown.
If congressional lawmakers don’t find a way to reopen the government by Wednesday — the 36th day of the government’s closure — the ongoing shutdown will set a record for being the longest government shutdown in history. It would surpass the shutdown that began on Dec. 22, 2018, during Trump’s first term, and lasted 35 days.
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