Less than 10 minutes away from the U.S. Capitol, which has been quiet and nearly empty since the government shutdown began 30 days ago, the line to get into a food pantry stretched into the street on Thursday morning. It is about to get worse.
So far, the consequences of the shutdown often feel isolated and distant—unless you are one of the roughly 3 million Americans employed by the U.S. government, of whom about 1.4 million are going without pay. Paychecks have stopped for Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) air traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screeners, for example, but planes and airport security lines are still moving, even if more slowly at times.
Federal funds for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) will run out on Saturday, affecting 42 million people nationwide who depend on federal assistance to help put food on the table. In Washington, D.C., roughly 141,000 residents receive monthly SNAP benefits—including 47,000 children, according to the D.C. Attorney General’s office, which along with more than 20 states sued the federal government to keep funding the program. Even if a judge orders the government to find some money to keep SNAP going, it likely wouldn’t be fast enough to avert a disruption in benefits or last for long.
SNAP recipients at a food pantry in southeastern Washington run by an organization called Bread for the City told me that they know what is coming—and are bracing for it.
