WASHINGTON — With the combination of the longest government shutdown, the mass firings of government workers and a fresh cut in federal food aid, the Capital Area Food Bank in Washington is bracing for the swell of people who will need its help before the holiday season.
The food bank, which serves 400 pantries and aid organizations in the District of Columbia, northern Virginia and two Maryland counties, is providing 8 million more meals than it had prepared to this budget year — a nearly 20% increase.
The city is being hit "especially hard," said Radha Muthiah, the group's CEO and president, "because of the sequence of events that has occurred over the course of this year."
The nation's capital was battered by Trump administration decisions, from layoffs of federal workers to the ongoing law enforcement intervention. The added blow of the shutdown, which furloughed workers and paused money for food assistance, only deepened the economic toll.
An employee moves pallets of food Thursday at a warehouse of the Capital Area Food Bank in Washington.
The latest figures from the D.C. Office of Revenue Analysis do not account for workforce changes since the shutdown began Oct. 1. Still, even the September jobs report shows the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate hovered at 6%, compared with the most recent national rate of 4.3%, and has been the highest in the U.S. for months.
The economic woes appear to be reverberating politically. Democrat Abigail Spanberger won election Tuesday as Virginia's governor after focusing her campaign message on the effects of President Donald Trump's actions on the state's economy.
The shutdown's long-term impact on the regional economy will be felt long after the government reopens, experts say.
Washington has the country's largest share of federal workers — about 20%, according to official figures — and about 150,000 federal employees call the area home. By Monday, hundreds of thousands of federal workers across the country will have missed at least two full paychecks because of the shutdown.
Nationally, at least 670,000 federal employees are 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 dropped by about one-quarter compared with ridership in September. The Restaurant Association of Greater Washington says eateries that already saw thin margins from seasonal declines and the fallout from Trump's deployment of armed National Guard members on city streets face more challenges at a time when owners hoped for a rebound.
A person walks Thursday toward the entrance of the Capital Area Food Bank in Washington.
Tracy Hadden Loh, a fellow at the think tank Brookings Metro, said going without paychecks is causes significant cash-flow issues for federal workers, potentially leading to defaults on mortgages and student loans. For city businesses, especially those reliant on federal workers' discretionary spending, it could exacerbate the effects during the high-sales October-December quarter.
"A lot of businesses rely on higher spending in Q4 in order to have a revenue positive year," Loh said.
The crowd watching Liverpool's Premier League game this month would have been standing room only at The Queen Vic, a bar in Northeast Washington. But that was not the case, said Ryan Gordon, co-owner of the British pub.
"We still had seats for people, which means the bars around us who get our overflow got nothing," Gordon said.
Business is down about 50% compared with what it was before the shutdown, he said. He considers himself lucky in the local restaurant scene because he owns the building and does not have to pay rent.
An employee checks inventory Thursday at a warehouse of the Capital Area Food Bank in Washington.
"To the extent to which discretionary spending by D.C. area households is limited, that could push a lot of local businesses into the red," Loh said.
The culmination of the shutdown, cut in SNAP benefits and layoffs weigh heavy on households that never sought help before, she added.
Thea Price was fired from her job at the U.S. Institute of Peace in March, part of layoffs meant to shrink the size of the federal government. Her husband, a government contractor, also lost his job at a museum. Since then, they lived on savings, Medicaid and SNAP.
Price, 37, recently went to a food pantry in Arlington, Virginia, for the first time. The shutdown halted funding for SNAP, after it took her months to get it, and the $500 payments she receives each month were set to stop. Virginia sent a partial payment but it was not enough, Price said. With her family's options running out, Price will move back to her hometown in the Seattle area.
"We can't afford to stay in the area any longer and hope that something might pan out," she said. "We're just in a much different place than when these things started in March."
An employee drives a forklift Thursday at a warehouse of the Capital Area Food Bank in Washington.
At the Capital Area Food Bank in Northeast Washington, forklifts sped around in a controlled chaos, unloading trucks, moving food and preparing for a distribution for federal employees and contractors. The organization expects to provide 1 million more meals this month than it anticipated before the shutdown.
"We're very focused obviously on the immediacy of all of these impacts today and getting food to those who need it," Muthiah said. But she cautioned there are long-term implications to the unfolding crisis, with people tapping their savings and retirement funds to get by.
"People are borrowing against their futures to be able to pay for basic necessities today," she said.
Monthlong government shutdown in photos: Disruptions, delays and divisions
Volunteer Betty McNeely, right, helps a man bag food items Oct. 28 at Project Feed, an emergency food pantry in Portland, Maine. With no endgame in sight, the U.S. government shutdown is expected to roll on for the unforeseeable future, injecting more uncertainty into an already precarious economy.
Brock Brooks, a disable Marine Corps veteran, cries Oct. 30 while describing the impending SNAP shutdowns while waiting in line to enter the food pantry service at Calvary Episcopal Church in Louisville, Ky. Funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, lapsed Saturday.
Volunteers prepare emergency food packages Oct. 28 at the Tarrant Area Food Bank in Fort Worth, Texas.
Tammy Norton, a furloughed federal employee of 16 years who currently works for the Internal Revenue Service, reacts with emotion Oct. 28 as she talks about running through her limited savings to support her family during the government shutdown, at a food distribution center for federal employees affected by the government shutdown in Dania Beach, Fla. The monthlong government shutdown halted routine federal operations, furloughed about 750,000 federal employees and left others working without pay.
Volunteer Joel Hernandez helps load a vehicle Oct. 27 during a food distribution targeting federal employee households affected by the federal shutdown as well as SNAP recipients in San Antonio.
A food and supplies bank is set up Oct. 17 at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas, Nv.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., disputes a reporter's question Oct. 24 as he enters his office at the Capitol in Washington on day 24 of the government shutdown.
The Capitol is seen at nightfall Oct. 22, day 22 of a government shutdown, in Washington.
Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., the Senate GOP whip, left, and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., arrive for a news conference with top Republicans on the government shutdown Oct. 1 at the Capitol in Washington.
Air Traffic Controllers stand Oct. 28 outside Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport in Romulus, Mich., distributing leaflets explaining how the federal government shutdown is affecting air travel. Airports have been scrambling with flight disruptions.
Travelers sit together and wait Oct. 2 at the Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport in Baltimore.
TSA agent Sashene McLean, holding her 1-year-old daughter, comes from work to collect a donation of produce, meat and yogurt Oct. 28 at a food distribution center in Dania Beach, Fla., organized to assist federal employees missing paychecks during the government shutdown.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., speaks to reporters Sept. 30 at the U.S. Capitol in Washington as the U.S. government was on the brink of the first federal government shutdown in almost seven years.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., and GOP leaders, from left, Rep. Lisa McClain, R-Mich., and Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., blame the government shutdown on Democrats during an Oct. 2 news conference at the Capitol in Washington. Americans, meanwhile, are divided on who’s to blame.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., attends a Sept. 30 news conference about the government shutdown on Capitol Hill in Washington. Democrats seek an extension of expiring tax credits that helped millions of people afford health insurance, while Republicans say they won’t negotiate until the government is reopened.
