The Impact of the Shutdown thread

[zoogs]

ITT: discussion purely about quantifying & qualifying the effects of the government shutdown in all areas.

 

NotITT: discussion about the ongoing political maneuverings and who's to blame, etc. See Government shutdown thread

 

Preliminary links:

http://www.theguardi...r-non-americans

The key issue is how long it lasts. Moody's Analytics reckons that a two-week shutdown would cut 0.3% off US GDP, while a month-long outage would knock a whole 1.4% off growth.

 

http://www.washingto...artment-impact/

 

Specifics:

Forbes|Government shutdown: 9 million moms and babies at risk as WIC program halts

 

Over 8.9 million moms and kids under five living near or below the poverty line rely on the program’s supplemental vouchers for healthy food, breastfeeding support, infant formula and other necessities dispensed at clinics nationwide.

 

The USDA estimates that most states will be able to continue WIC operations as usual for “a week or so” before running out of money. The department’s Food and Nutrition Service has a contingency fund of only $125 million available for this $7 billion annual appropriation.

 

...

 

“America is not realizing how many low-income pregnant women and children we have in this country,” she said. “They have no safety net. These women are trying to have a healthy pregnancy, and they’re asking, ‘how am I going to feed my family?’ It’s a terrifying moment, and it’s beyond my control. At our agency, we have no cushion. If our funding stream stops we will temporarily suspend service.”

 

Universe Today| What does the government shutdown mean for NASA?

 

A forthcoming NASA launch to Mars could be in danger of losing its launch window should a shutdown in the United States federal government that began today (Oct. 1) continue for a while....

 

Around 97% of NASA’s 18,000 employees are off the job....Media reports indicate that if the shutdown is lengthy, MAVEN could miss the launch window and have to try again in 2016...

 

The 3% of NASA employees who are deemed essential will work without pay until the situation is resolved. These are some of the things that will continue: (...)

 

CBS|NIH, CDC feeling government shutdown's effects

 

"I usually don't lose sleep despite the threats that we face, but I am losing sleep because we don't know if we'll be able to find and stop things that might kill people," CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden told CBS News correspondent Mark Strassmann Tuesday.

 

Outside of the NIH hospital, laboratory experiments ranging from creating better flu vaccines to finding the cause of autism also were suspended as scientists were sent home.

 

Forbes|Here's the letter telling NSA staffers to go home for the government shutdown

 

...in a statement sent to some reporters, Director National Intelligence office spokesperson Shawn Turner said warned that “the Intelligence Community’s ability to identify threats and provide information for a broad set of national security decisions will be diminished for the duration.

 

...dissections of these and any other areas welcome.

[HuskerLuke]

High fives for the IRS being out of commission?

 

As far as individual impact, I suspect that the consequences of a shutdown are pretty minimal for most of the first week (e.g. states can keep WIC going for that long without federal help), and dramatically start to get more serious after that. Same with federal employees: a week's furlough shouldn't put anyone under, but after 3 weeks....that's gonna hurt.

 

Economic damage is really hard to gauge, because while decreased government expenditures will necessarily diminish GDP and are fairly trackable, the economic splash damage to, say, the tourist industry of Jackson, Wyoming due to Yellowstone being closed for 2-3 weeks is much more difficult to get a grip on. Either way, it's not good for the economy, and it's in everyone's best interest that the shutdown not go on for long.

 

I will express skepticism with some of the individual analyses of the various departments, particularly intelligence and defense. They have an obvious interest in saying that any reduction in funding is going to jeopardize their operations. I have a feeling that this nation (which is not known for skimping on defense) is not particularly vulnerable even when the DoD and DHS are operating on a "skeleton staff."

[knapplc]

As I mentioned in the other thread, not only are these and many other departments impacted, including those directly dependent on the government (like WIC), but the economies of towns with many federal government employees will see a ripple effect from this when those paychecks stop coming. This thing has far, far greater ramifications than are being talked about.

 

From the LA Times:

 

The nation is currently more than four years into an economic expansion with some momentum behind it. That also was the case in 1995. But this time, things are a lot more fragile.

 

Americans continue to suffer from a relatively high unemployment rate of 7.3%, which is about 2 percentage points higher than in December 1995. Back then, job growth was stronger, the economy was starting to benefit from the tech boom, and baby boomers were entering their prime earning years, not preparing for retirement.

 

The recovery from the Great Recession has been sluggish and repeatedly held back by political budget battles, but many had been hoping the economy would pick up steam heading into next year. Housing and stock markets have been growing, and consumers have cut their debts and are feeling more confident.

 

"Even in the best-case scenario," said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, "it's going to slow things down."

[JJ Husker]

I am not and will not claim that many people have not been adversely affected by the shutdown. I'm sure many people are hurting. But, I think it is also appropriate for us to comment on how it has directly impacted us personally. In my case, I have noticed no change whatsoever so far. I would be interested to see/hear how the shutdown has directly impacted any posters here on HB. That would seem to be a somewhat effective way to cut through the partisan hyperbole and rhetoric even if it is not a "bigger picture" way of looking at the overall problem.

[Excel]

I am not and will not claim that many people have not been adversely affected by the shutdown. I'm sure many people are hurting. But, I think it is also appropriate for us to comment on how it has directly impacted us personally. In my case, I have noticed no change whatsoever so far. I would be interested to see/hear how the shutdown has directly impacted any posters here on HB. That would seem to be a somewhat effective way to cut through the partisan hyperbole and rhetoric even if it is not a "bigger picture" way of looking at the overall problem.

 

I work with many civilian employees of the Federal Government, many who I expected to be part of the 400,000 furloughed as they perform what I thought were pretty non-essential functions. Family Readiness and Nutrition type stuff - those are the people that work in my office and they showed up to work both yesterday and today. Now some of their subordinates have been furloughed but they, the supervisors, are still working.

 

I was very disappointed. Working on an installation where it feels like civilian employees and contractors constitute 2/3 of the daily population I was looking forward to less traffic and BS and more parking. I was wrong.

[HuskerLuke]

I am not and will not claim that many people have not been adversely affected by the shutdown. I'm sure many people are hurting. But, I think it is also appropriate for us to comment on how it has directly impacted us personally. In my case, I have noticed no change whatsoever so far. I would be interested to see/hear how the shutdown has directly impacted any posters here on HB. That would seem to be a somewhat effective way to cut through the partisan hyperbole and rhetoric even if it is not a "bigger picture" way of looking at the overall problem.

 

I'm going duck hunting this weekend and I was looking for water reports on federal land near Geneva. Couldn't do it because the US Fish and Wildlife Service website has been disabled. My IRA and 401k have taken small hits due to what I presume is market discomfort with the situation in Washington right now. That's the extent to which I've been affected.

[JJ Husker]

I am not and will not claim that many people have not been adversely affected by the shutdown. I'm sure many people are hurting. But, I think it is also appropriate for us to comment on how it has directly impacted us personally. In my case, I have noticed no change whatsoever so far. I would be interested to see/hear how the shutdown has directly impacted any posters here on HB. That would seem to be a somewhat effective way to cut through the partisan hyperbole and rhetoric even if it is not a "bigger picture" way of looking at the overall problem.

 

I'm going duck hunting this weekend and I was looking for water reports on federal land near Geneva. Couldn't do it because the US Fish and Wildlife Service website has been disabled. My IRA and 401k have taken small hits due to what I presume is market discomfort with the situation in Washington right now. That's the extent to which I've been affected.

 

I had not considered the market impact on my IRA's. I assume it has been neglible because my broker will typically call me if there are any significant movements and, I did notice the Dow actually went up a bit yesterday.

[HuskerLuke]

I had not considered the market impact on my IRA's. I assume it has been neglible because my broker will typically call me if there are any significant movements and, I did notice the Dow actually went up a bit yesterday.

 

I believe the S&P has lost ground something like 8 of the last 10 days. It's not a big deal, I'm sure there will be a rally the moment a deal goes through.

[VA Husker Fan]

Some friends of mine are doing a 100 mile trailrunning race that was scheduled for this weekend. The permit for the race was pulled since some of it is on US forest land. They will try to have it next weekend if the shutdown is over, otherwise it's canceled. It's the first 100 for a few of them and they've been training all year. It's a huge commitment. I know there are others hit harder but this is at least as big as the ruined vacations I've been seeing on the news. I was supposed to pace (run the last part of the course with) one of my friends but can't next weekend.

 

My son is waiting to hear back on a government job he interviewed for at a job fair. I'm guessing that's on hold right now.

 

Stock market is down a bit since this started looking like a reality a couple weeks ago, but only just over 1%. It should come back.

[AR Husker Fan]

One component that is overlooked are state jobs that are impacted. In Arkansas, over 2000 employees have been furloughed. Arkansas has a mandatory balanced budget; it can't spend what it doesn't have. There are, in every state, thousands of state jobs that are fully or partially funded through federal dollars. If there are other states with mandatory balanced budgets, I would assume they have had to furlough employees as well - or will very soon. In Arkansas, this has included the National Guard; let's hope no tornados or other natural disasters strike. Yes, it may not hurt too much for a few days or a week, but in '95 it was for 21 days - that will literally bankrupt those state employees that are in low-income jobs and are furloughed. So, it's not just federal employees.

 

Take that number, along with the federal employees, and that's a pretty good chunk of change that won't be collected on the state level for sales and other taxes. Even for states that can "borrow" against the loss, it's still going to hurt in regards to less revenue collected. I have no figures for what that will be, and oddly enough I have seen almost no mention of this impact, but it's real.

 

What makes this shutdown somewhat unique is the timing. In almost every other case I recall that were not actual budget bills, the shutdowns occurred at some point DURING the federal fiscal year. This one is occurring at the BEGINNING of the federal fiscal year. Payments to states are made automatically through computerized payment systems. Those systems get "loaded" each quarter - except in a case like this. This time, there has been no "front loading" of monies to those systems, so there is a larger amount that goes unpaid to the states. So, this time, the loss of federal dollars to the states is very high relative to other instances.

[HUSKER 37]

I can't imagine this thing will drag on long enough for anyone to collect unemployment..Will any of these people get their wages "caught up" or maybe be able to use their sick/vacation time to get back pay?

 

The company I work for has had a wage freeze for the last 4 years with no end in sight and cut us all back to 6 hour days for around 8 months a couple of years ago..I went back to selling plasma reminding me of my college days, and trying to survive on a couple $ a day for food.

[HuskerLuke]

I can't imagine this thing will drag on long enough for anyone to collect unemployment..Will any of these people get their wages "caught up" or maybe be able to use their sick/vacation time to get back pay?

 

Congress approved back pay after the mid-90s shutdowns. That's not a guarantee for this time around, but I'm guessing they will.

[NUance]

I can't imagine this thing will drag on long enough for anyone to collect unemployment..Will any of these people get their wages "caught up" or maybe be able to use their sick/vacation time to get back pay?

 

The company I work for has had a wage freeze for the last 4 years with no end in sight and cut us all back to 6 hour days for around 8 months a couple of years ago..I went back to selling plasma reminding me of my college days, and trying to survive on a couple $ a day for food.

And you live in Arizona, right? I imagine there are stories like yours, or worse, in all the rust belt states during the past decade. And when it happens in private industry there is no deep pockets Uncle Sam on the scene to "catch up" the lost wages. Private sector jobs and wages are simply lost forever. But I hope the tide is turning on our bloated gov't run amok. I hope this is the beginning of cutbacks to trim the fat from the public sector. In my heart though, I doubt that anything much comes from this. Things will be back to normal in a week or so. Our go'vt will be back in business selling our future down the river.

[JJ Husker]

Unfortunately I think NUance is absolutely correct. If we want to expand the impact discussion to include the general overall economy, boy do I have plenty to add. I'll keep it simple though- we employ half the number of people now compared to pre 2008 and we've basically had a wage freeze since the day Obama took office. We recently ignored better business practices and gave everyone a bump anyway though, just to help out with the escalating cost of living. Being a small business owner has not been fun for quite awhile. Now bring me up to speed- is it still Bush's fault?

[BigRedBuster]

We work with Ex/Im bank for some of our sales. We simply needed to look on their website for something the other day and it was shut down so, that delays what we can do as far as a few export sales we normally would have processed by now.

 

I honestly would like to see the reasoning behind this. Any web site I have worked with we pay the hosting fees in either yearly payments or every 6 months. if we all of a sudden lost all of our funding, our web sites wouldn't all of a sudden be off line. Makes no sense.

 

I really do feel sorry for the people who are out of work for what ever time frame this is. Nobody wants to see that. However, this has been going on in the private sector for years. At some point the children in Washington will pull their heads out of their azzes and they will go back to work and, more than likely, they will be paid back wages.

 

This is not going to crash the economy and the world is not coming to an end.