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Government Shutdown

The Shutdown Is Over, But Millions Are Set To Lose Food Stamps

November 23, 2025 Reyanna James, In These Times. , , , , ,
The roughly 42 million Americans who rely on food stamps did not receive their November 1 SNAP benefits as the government shutdown dragged on. The missed payments came just as the holiday season began, leaving many families struggling to put food on the table. Lines at food banks backed up traffic across the country. The Trump administration defied federal court orders to restore full funding to the program before the Supreme Court’s conservative majority temporarily greenlit the freeze. The White House even tried to claw back funding from states that had already distributed it to hungry families.

Democrats’ Treachery Ends The Shutdown

November 13, 2025 Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report. , , ,
In “The Shutdown and Neverending Hostility to the Welfare State,” written just two weeks ago, this columnist made the following statement. “If the Democratic Party can’t stand up to defend programs that feed poor people and pay for healthcare, then it literally has no reason to exist at all.” That essay presented a long list of infamous Democratic Party chicanery that chipped away at the already inadequate welfare state in this country. The democrats may talk a good game, but in the final analysis they will join with their duopoly partners in the Republican Party to practice the politics of austerity.

The Working Class Must Not Pay The Price For The Government Shutdown

November 10, 2025 Lila Walters, Left Voice. , , , , ,
Twelve days into the government shutdown, Vice President JD Vance threatened federal workers that they would feel the pain if Democrats did not agree to Republicans’ plan: “The longer this goes on, the deeper the cuts are going to be. To be clear, some of these cuts are going to be painful.” Beneath his usual grimace of performative empathy, Vance exposed the callous truth of this face off between the Democratic Party and Trump’s GOP: workers’ lives are nothing but a bargaining chip for the two imperialist parties. Left out in the cold by the Democrats and Republicans, the working class and poor are left to sort it out for ourselves. All workers, public sector and private alike, must demand that our unions take the side — not of the representatives of the bosses — but of the workers and oppressed, using their might to force an end to the shutdown, an end to layoffs and full backpay for all those furloughed, full employment and a living wage for all to feed their families, universal healthcare, and an independent, combative plan of action to fight all of Trump’s attacks on the working class.

Kentucky Organizers Fill The Gaps As SNAP Delays Leave Families In Limbo

November 10, 2025 Anabel Peterman, Next City. , , , , , ,
“I was expecting, maybe, four of us?” Willa Johnson remarked, earning a few laughs around the table. She sat among about 20 familiar friends and new faces. Most were residents of Letcher County in southeast Kentucky. All were committed to helping their neighbors through food insecurity amid the federal government shutdown. Two days earlier, Johnson made a post in a new mutual aid Facebook group, ‘Kinfolks Feeding Kinfolks,’ asking for locals to help fill the gap if the shutdown halted food aid benefits. She gave a statement, date, time, location and a plea to leave politics at the door. “After the floods in 2022, we saw the very best of that neighborly love in action.

Federation Of Southern Co-ops Sets Out Shutdown Support Measures

November 8, 2025 Miles Hadfield, Coop News. , , , ,
With the US federal shutdown entering its second month, the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund has set out its effort to support people suffering food insecurity. The shutdown, which began on 1 October, has affected food stamp payments issued through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) benefits. This month, the Trump administration said claimants will be given half their normal monthly allotment, taken from emergency funding. The Federation has pointed to the ”urgency” of the situation and its impact on programmes like SNAP, “which millions depend on for food access”, and says it has “built infrastructure to address crises like this”.

It’s Open Season On Public Sector Workers

November 5, 2025 Les Leopold, Scheer Post. , , ,
First Trump and Musk take a chainsaw to their ranks, then the Democrats, in effect, lock out those who still have jobs. Approximately 100,000 government employees have lost their jobs since Trump took over. If that wasn’t bad enough, now the Democrats, trying to show that they really aren’t wimps, have shut down the government. Seven hundred and thirty thousand public sector employees are working without pay while another 670,000 have been furloughed. Working people of all shades, shapes, and sizes are suffering collateral damage.

Indian Country Hit First, And Harshest, Amidst Federal Shutdown

November 2, 2025 Darren Thompson, Last Real Indians. , , ,
Like climate change, the federal government shutdown affects Indigenous communities in the country first and harsher than other communities. There are several reasons why, including that federally recognized tribes have a political relationship with the federal government that is based on the laws that founded this country. In exchange for land, the federal government made provisions—consider them as promises—to tribes and their citizens in various legal processes such as treaties, executive orders, and legislation. In exchange for land, the federal government created unique programs only available to federally recognized tribes largely in the areas of housing, education, healthcare and law enforcement.

The Shutdown And Neverending Hostility To The Welfare State

November 1, 2025 Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report. , , ,
Anyone who ponders whether or not the United States is a failed state operating at the behest of the ruling class and their corrupt political system need only observe that the federal government ceased operations after the fiscal year ended on September 30. Immediately, more than 2 million federal workers were furloughed and have not been paid since, while some categories of employees, such as air traffic controllers, must work without pay. Having two million people suddenly out of work is not the end of the economic devastation. The federal government cannot expend any money. On November 1 Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits will not be paid and the Trump administration refuses to use an available source of emergency funds. Some 42 million recipients are at risk of being unable to buy food.

Healthcare Takes Center Stage In Shutdown

October 5, 2025 Natalia Marques, People's Dispatch. , , ,
The US government shut down at midnight on October 1 after Congress failed to approve new spending bills, forcing federal agencies nationwide to halt or scale back operations. At the heart of the shutdown is a standoff between Republican and Democratic Party politicians over healthcare. Over the summer, Republican lawmakers passed Donald Trump’s sweeping “Big Beautiful Bill” that makes deep cuts to public healthcare. Democrats argue that the Republican budget plan would weaken programs like Medicaid, the nation’s largest public health insurance program which covers over 70 million people. Democratic Party lawmakers demanded that protections for these programs be locked into a short-term spending bill, and when Republicans failed to deliver, lawmakers were unable to pass a funding bill to avoid a shutdown. 

Federal Workers Support Shutdown Fight

October 2, 2025 Jenny Brown, Labor Notes. , , , ,
A coalition of unions in the federal sector signed on to an extraordinary Federal Unionists Network letter September 29 urging the Democrats to fight Trump administration cuts, even at the price of a government shutdown. It was titled “No Bad Budget in Our Name,” and signers represent tens of thousands of federal workers. Now that the shutdown has started, FUN is organizing a response among federal unionists, stating: “This is much more than a fight between branches of government or political parties. This government shutdown is a showdown between the public and the billionaires.” “[They’re] using a shutdown as a threat to pressure Congress to pass a budget that impacts our most vulnerable, including seniors, rural communities, hungry children and cuts out access to healthcare for millions of Americans,” said FUN Co-Executive Director Alyssa Taft.

Government Shutdown: It Will Take A People’s Movement To Defeat Trump

October 1, 2025 Liberation News. , , , ,
A government shutdown appears highly likely in the coming hours. Despite last-minute negotiations, this dramatic development is coming to pass for one fundamental reason: The Trump administration and the right wing in Congress is determined to destroy working people’s access to healthcare. In a “government shutdown”, not every part of the federal government stops operating. ICE agents will continue to terrorize immigrant families. The Pentagon war machine will continue to threaten the world. The first programs to be imperiled will be vital lifelines like WIC or food stamps. Typically, shutdowns have been caused by Republican members of Congress who refuse to pass budget bills unless they include massive cuts to social programs.

Far Right Imposed Shutdown Represents Deeper Crises

September 30, 2023 Sam Carliner and Enid Brain, Left Voice. , , ,
For the fourth time in ten years, the government is about to shut down ( prior to the 2013 shutdown, the last shutdown was in 1996). This shutdown, if it isn’t averted through last-minute maneuvering, would mean that roughly four million government employees — including police officers and the military —  would have their paychecks delayed, be furloughed, or otherwise impacted. The chaotic process of trying to keep the government open reveals, again, the deeply undemocratic nature of the U.S. regime. That a small sector of the far-right, elected by a tiny segment of the U.S. population, can hold necessary social programs hostage and demand new cuts in order to prevent an incredibly disruptive government shutdown is a sign that the U.S. government doesn’t represent the masses.

With Another Shutdown Looming, Flight Attendants Plan Demonstrations On February 16

February 11, 2019 By Sarah Jones, Nymag.com , ,
Congressional negotiators told Politico on Friday that they’re working on a deal that will prevent a second government shutdown on February 15. If they fail — or if President Trump again refuses to accept whatever compromise they reach — hundreds of thousands of federal workers and subcontractors will find themselves without income once more. The last shutdown ended, in part, because workers revolted: After missing two paychecks, ten air traffic controllers called in sick, an absence significant enough to severely delay air traffic in New York City and Washington. Now, as another shutdown looms, workers are preparing for the worst. Sara Nelson, the president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA...

What The Government Shutdown Told Us About Worker Power

February 5, 2019 By Negin Owliaei, Inequality.org , ,
“Do we have your attention now, Leader McConnell?” Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants, posed this question after shutdown-related staffing shortages at the Federal Aviation Administration all but halted air traffic in the Northeast. The longest-running federal government shutdown came to an end just hours later, fittingly brought to an end by government workers, the people most impacted by the ordeal. Nelson made waves among the labor community at an AFL-CIO awards ceremony earlier in January when she called for a general strike in support of furloughed workers.

In Praise Of Direct Action (And More)

January 29, 2019 Paul Street, Counterpunch.org , ,
As the partial federal shutdown moved into its third week, I found myself thinking about the late left economist and sociologist Giovanni Arrighi’s concept of “workplace bargaining power” (WBP).  By WBP, Arrighi meant the ability some strategically placed workers possess to idle capital and harm profits by bottle-necking the interdependent, integrated, and continuous flow of production.  This, Arrighi argued, was different from the special “marketplace bargaining power” (MBP) some workers derive from the possession of scarce skills.
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