New York and the nation are facing economic impacts because of the federal government shutdown.
Data from the White House Council of Economic Advisors find New York will lose $1.2 billion per week during the shutdown, amounting to more than $5 billion in a month.
The biggest issue at hand is whether to extend subsidies for the Affordable Care Act. Nathan Gusdorf, executive director of the Fiscal Policy Institute, said not doing so could wreak havoc on New Yorkers’ access to health care.
“The Department of Health has estimated that failing to extend these tax credits would cause health-care costs in New York to spike by 38% for 140,000 individual market enrollees,” he said, “and it will cut funding to the Essential Plan, which provides health care to 1.7 million New Yorkers.”
This comes several months after the federal budget megabill cut funding for Medicaid and Medicare, which will cause more than 1 million New Yorkers to lose their health insurance.
Republican lawmakers in both chambers of the New York state Legislature have sent letters to congressional leaders, urging them to resolve the shutdown and reopen the federal government before the impacts worsen.
New York is home to 115,000 federal workers who are being used as a bargaining chip to get Democrats to negotiate a way to end the shutdown. Gusdorf said this is disruptive to federal employees’ lives.
“The prospect is especially frightening under the Trump administration,” he said, “which has threatened to fire thousands of federal workers, a dangerous breach of precedent that will put the functioning of the federal government itself at risk.”
A new White House Office of Management and Budget memo claims furloughed workers aren’t entitled to back pay, a position Trump supports, as a way to motivate Democrats to the negotiating table. This goes against the OMB’s previous position on a 2019 law Trump signed in his first term, guaranteeing back pay for federal workers during a shutdown. Experts note this new position has no historic or legal basis.
Edwin is a reporter and producer in North Tonawanda, New York. He’s previously reported for the Niagara Gazette and the Ithaca Times. Edwin got an early start in radio interning for WBFO-88.7FM, NPR’s Buffalo affiliate. In 2018, he graduated from SUNY Buffalo State College with a B.A. in Journalism, and in 2022, graduated from Syracuse University with an M.S. in Communications.