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IPFS News Link • Government

The Shutdown Show: How Sending Out Food Stamp Benefits Early Could ...

• https://www.theorganicprepper.com

As I've written before, the government shutdown is a perfect demonstration of our politicians participating in partisan showmanship, with poor people as the victims of their theater. As individual states desperately attempt to take care of the people depending on them by sending out food stamp benefits early, the theater in Washington DC continues, completely unconcerned about the havoc being wrought.

Regardless of your thoughts about people who are on government assistance, it's incontrovertible that people are seeing the rug yanked out from under their feet quite suddenly. Here are some numbers:

800,00 government workers aren't getting paid

43,000 members of the US Coast Guard did not receive a paycheck, making it the first time in history members of the military did not receive compensation during a shutdown.

30 million children enrolled in the National School Lunch Program are being served "minimum" lunches or are at risk of losing their lunches.

A bunch of tenants in Arkansas subsidized housing got an eviction threat.

2500 stores across the country are no longer able to take EBT payments because their licenses lapsed during the shutdown and cannot be renewed until the government resumes.

43.6 million people rely on food stamps.

That's a whole lot of Americans who are dealing bigtime stress right now.

Food stamp benefits are going out early.

A number of states are issuing food stamp benefits early due to the government shutdown. They're doing this over concern that if the shutdown continues, they won't be able to issue the payments in February.

But the early payment comes with a sobering warning. A press relief from the state of Michigan said:

For food assistance clients, Michigan will begin issuing February benefits on Saturday, Jan. 19. Clients who don't receive their benefits on that date should receive the funds the following week. That means the 1.2 million Michigan residents who receive food assistance will have benefits to feed their families in February even if the partial federal government shutdown continues.

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