The U.S. government shutdown is affecting federal workers around the country, but some areas have been hit harder than others. Finance website WalletHub recently compared all 50 states and the District of Columbia to determine those most affected.
It won’t come as a surprise that the area most impacted by the shutdown is the District of Columbia. After that, WalletHub estimates that the states getting hit hardest are New Mexico, Maryland, Hawaii, Alaska, Virginia, West Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama, and Arizona.
Red states are slightly less affected than Blue ones, and the District of Columbia has the highest share of families receiving food stamps thanks to the shutdown, 20.95%. That percentage represents 3.5 times the amount of food stamps being handed out in Wyoming, the state with the lowest percentage of residents of Supplemental Nutritional Assistance, 6%.
That said, Wyoming doesn’t make the list of states least affected by the shutdown. Those states are (in order) Ohio, North Dakota, New Jersey, Kansas, Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, New Hampshire, and Minnesota.
We’re currently on Day 13 of the partial government shutdown. President Trump continues to demand $5 billion in funding to build a wall separating Mexico and the U.S. Democrats have negotiated with Republicans to offer $1.6 billion for the effort, and have refused to raise that offer.
Currently, 420,000 federal employees are working without pay and 380,000 employees are on unpaid leave.
