For 43 days, the United States Government endured what some historians have called a “government shutdown”: a cessation of non-essential governmental functions until Congress agrees on how to pass funding legislation.
This means that non-essential federal employees (employees who are not involved in protecting property and lives) are placed on what the US Office for Personnel Management calls a ‘“shutdown” furlough’, in other words, a temporary ‘nonpay status’. The last shutdown, also the second-longest, took place in 2019 under the first Trump Administration, and lasted 34 days.
For this year’s shutdown, these workers remained on furlough until the Democrats and Republicans agreed on the funding that would be provided for health-related issues. These included confronting the recent cuts to Medicaid, and the potentially extending health insurance subsidies.
On 12th November, this funding package was finally agreed. And while it did not cover the extension of health insurance subsidies, it did cover funding toward Snap food aid and the Department of Agriculture.
This shutdown (which is now the longest in US history) resulted in not just new healthcare funding initiatives, but a series of serious economic impacts which are likely to be more than temporary. The most significant are as follows:
Firstly, the new funding deal, which will be in place until the 30th January 2026, is estimated to put the US government into $1.8 trillion more debt per year. This follows a GDP fall directly resulting from the six-week shutdown, where the GDP of the US is expected to reduce by 0.15-1.5 percentage points in the final quarter of 2025 (followed by similar GDP growth in the first quarter of 2026).
Air travel reduced significantly during the shutdown period after air traffic controllers were furloughed and worker attendance decreased. It was expected to take at least a week for air travel to return to pre-shutdown levels. And, those workers who continued to work without pay are beginning to receive $10,000 bonus cheques.
Overall, by the last day of the shutdown on 14th November, around $14 billion in wages was unpaid, amounting to about 3 million paychecks. This is on top of the closure/reduced hours of programmes for low-income households such as Head Start (for early childhood education) and Liheap (for heating subsidies, serving nearly 6 million low-income households), which will take weeks to reopen.
As the United States government recovers from this economic turmoil, and the hundreds of thousands of furloughed federal workers have their pay resumed, it can be hard to see why people in the UK feel such uneasiness about an issue so far away, an issue which doesn’t (from face value) directly affect us.
However, seeing communities financially suffer instinctively makes us reflect on the struggles we face closer to home.
Across the country, food banks worry for a difficult winter ahead, as the number of families in need rises dramatically, and more households than usual are worrying about staying warm during the winter as budgets tighten.
In York, growing numbers of working people are attending HOPING York Street Kitchen, and University of York students are facing a cost-of-living crisis with ever-increasing rent prices and reduced bursaries.
If you’re struggling this winter, find your local food bank here, and warm spaces in your area here. For more advice, visit https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd6084l4zx6o.