USA, this is who actually pays the value of the shutdown | EUROtoday

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While in Washington we talk about “filibusters” and “filibusters”, within the suburbs of Phoenix supermarkets solely settle for money, SNAP playing cards now not work and thousands and thousands of Americans see their meals stamps disappear in a single day. It is the thirty sixth day of the federal shutdown within the United Stateswhich started on October 1, 2025 and is at present the longest within the historical past of the nation.

Food as a weapon

Donald Trump has determined to tie the destiny of the SNAP program – which ensures meals stamps to 42 million individuals – to the reopening of the federal government. «No subsidies till radical Democrats finish the shutdown»he wrote on Truth Socialignoring a federal courtroom order to take care of emergency funds. And so, within the poorest states, resembling Louisiana, Mississippi and Arizona, thousands and thousands of households obtain solely half of their advantages or are left ready for frozen funds. The Department of Agriculture confirmed that $4.65 billion stays within the emergency fund, simply sufficient to cowl 50% of the November subsidies, which value a mean of $9 billion a month.

Queues on the canteens and empty fridges

Meanwhile, in entrance of the canteens in Los Angeles, Dallas and New York, the strains are getting longer on daily basis. Feeding America, the most important meals financial institution community within the nation, stories a 70% enhance in requests for assist in only a few weeks. In Chicago, church canteens serve over 1,000,000 meals a day and in lots of cities volunteers alternate day and evening in order to not depart anybody hungry.

Schools in emergency

The training system shouldn’t be spared both. In the Navajo Nation, Arizona, the Chinle district has suspended all after-school applications and faculty meals. The penalties are critical, particularly for these youngsters who, as Superintendent Quincy Natay explains, solely eat in school. The downside, on this case, arises from the blocking of Impact Aid, a $1.6 billion fund that helps colleges constructed on federal lands or indigenous reserves. In Chinle, as in Lackland, Texas, and Rocky Boy, Montana, that cash represents half the annual finances. Now, nonetheless, every little thing is at a standstill.

WIC and Head Start, the forgotten childhood

More than 58 thousand youngsters in 41 states threat remaining with out help because of the suspension of Head Start funds, the historic federal program of the United States, born within the Nineteen Sixties throughout Lyndon Johnson’s “War on Poverty”, which serves to supply pre-school training, meals, well being care and household assist to youngsters from low-income households, aged a couple of months as much as 5 years previous. Many facilities have diminished their hours or closed utterly. The WIC program, which gives meals to pregnant girls and newborns, can also be in disaster. States like Virginia and Hawaii are utilizing the final of their 2024 funds to keep away from collapse.