They’re really anxious now. What at first seemed like ho-hum political brinkmanship is looking more like a prolonged, punishing shutdown, more akin to the 27-day funding lapse in 1995 and 1996 than the blink-and-miss-it shutdowns earlier this year.
“This one feels different,” said Celia Hahn, a Transportation Security Administration officer at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, who is working without pay and worried about her mortgage and her son’s orthodontic expenses. “If it were to go about two weeks, that’s when people would start panicking.”
Dena Ivey, a furloughed probate specialist in the Anchorage office of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, lost many of her possessions during the recent Alaska earthquake, and feels overwhelmed by the man-made disaster now afflicting her family.
“We’re sort of being held hostage in the middle, and we have families and obligations,” said Ivey, a single mother. “I don’t know if I’m going to be able to make rent.” She added: “I’m basically living on credit now.”
On Thursday, the federal Office of Personnel Management posted a link to a document that offered tips to federal workers on weathering a lengthy interruption, including suggestions on how to defer rent payments, or even barter with landlords by offering to perform minor repair work.
Some charitable groups are attempting to fill the breach.
The nonprofit Coast Guard Mutual Assistance is helping out lower-ranking members, offering $550 to married members and $350 to single Coast Guard members who need help paying for food or overdue bills. If all 21,000 members who are eligible for the aid request it, that would cost some $12 million.
Anxieties are highest for the 800,000 federal workers furloughed or forced to work without pay. But the fear is spreading.
Joel Berg, chief executive of Hunger Free America, a national advocacy group for nonprofits that manage federal food programs for the poor, Berg said the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps, would likely be fine. But other programs — including Women, Infants and Children, or WIC, which provides aid to states — could see supply-chain interruptions if the shutdown drags on.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.