As the tea party-engendered government shutdown winds toward the end of its 11th day, the damage to the economy is growing.
Seven million people are estimated to have been kept from entering the dozen most-visited U.S. national parks—including Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon and the Everglades—because of the federal government shutdown. Estimated economic damage to parks and nearby communities: $76 million a day. That comes from a report from the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees. The estimates are based on National Park Service visitation numbers from last October and the analysis of the nonpartisan group Headwaters Economics. At risk, the report says, are 40,000 non-Park Service jobs in and outside these 12 national parks.
In Utah, state officials have found enough money—$1.65 million—to put park rangers and other national park employees back to work in its five national parks for a month.
Interior Secretary Sally Jewel said earlier this week she would only discuss the issue with state officials if they fully funded the parks, not some piecemeal approach. That means $21 million a year. Zion National Park alone costs $50,000 a day to operate.
While operators of restaurants and hotels here at Zion’s shuttered entrance cheered any prospect of reopening the park, they said the shutdown had already taken a heavy toll on this town of 550 people. Big tours had already canceled their reservations and made other plans, and local businesses said they were skeptical about whether the news of any park reopenings would make a difference to foreign tour operators as long as the government shutdown persists.
The state is not yet willing to come up with $122,000 a day to open Grand Canyon National Park.
Other states, South Dakota, for instance, don't have the resources to reopen their national parks.
Meanwhile, retailers fear that if the government doesn't get up and running soon, the shutdown could have an negative impact on a holiday season with the potential of $600 billion in sales, about 20 percent of the total annual revenue for retailers. Consumer confidence has already taken a massive hit because of uncertainty about how long and how deep an impact the shutdown will have.
The industry trade group National Retail Federation wrote a letter this week asking Congress to end the shutdown immediately and saying that only the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008 “has done more damage to consumer confidence in such a short period of time.”
One problem for retailers is the lack of economic data that help them plan their business activity. While the loss of the monthly job report last Friday may not bother them much, this Friday there were no tally of September retail sales numbers released for them to evaluate. Those September numbers take on increased importance because growth in August retail sales were the weakest in four months. If sales seem likely to be lower this holiday season than last year's, retailers will want to hire fewer temporary workers. Not knowing is troublesome.
In addition, the eVerify system (which determines who is a citizen and or green card holder) is shuttered, hiring seasonal workers in retail just before the peak buying season is sticky. Because agencies that handle supervision of cargo handling are not operating fully, unloading the four million containers of merchandise already sitting on the docks waiting to be shipped to stores may be delayed.
Below the fold are 10 more examples of how the shutdown is making people's lives economically miserable and uncertain.
• Head Start programs in several states across the nation have been closed. The National Head Start Association says about 7,000 children have been left without services so far:
Dora Jones, program director for Cheaha Regional Head Start in Talladega, Ala., and her head custodian spent Friday driving to her 16 centers to make sure doors and windows were locked, appliances unplugged, and air conditioners turned off.
Jones had to furlough more than 200 employees, including Jazmine Myers, 26, who had already been furloughed for two weeks this summer because of budget cuts required by sequestration.
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The State Department's study of Keystone XL is being slowed by the shutdown. The study has been in the works since the draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement was presented in March. The department is involved because the proposed 36-inch pipeline crosses the Canadian-U.S. border and therefore can only get the green light by means of a presidential permit that is based on the "national interest." Evaluating this requires consulting with several other federal agencies—including the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Interior, both of which have raised objections to the SEIS. Thousands of employees in those agencies, like much of the rest of the federal government, have been sent home until Congress and the president come to agreement about the way forward.
• Black workers are being hurt worse by the shutdown because they make up 13.6 percent of the U.S. population but 17.7 percent of the federal workforce where 800,000 workers are now furloughed. Overall, people of color represent 34 percent of the federal workforce and 37 percent of the U.S. population. Here are some statistics about the impact of furloughs—that is, layoffs—on people of color on the federal payroll.
• Three children from the Spirit Lake Tribe of Sioux Indians in North Dakota will not be reconciling with their mom Friday because the Bureau of Indian Affairs social worker required to attend a custody hearing has been furloughed. And if the shutdown drags on, the parents of a cancer-afflicted boy from the Crow Tribe of Montana will only be able to stay with him for a month of his six-month treatment regime because the tribe’s medical assistance program will be out of money at the end of October. Indian nutrition, elder care and housing assistance programs across all 566 federally recognized tribes of American Indians and Alaska Natives are affected by the shutdown.
• Across Oklahoma, thousands of home daycare providers are feeling the pinch of the shutdown because they are no longer being reimbursed for the food they provide to children out of their own pockets. Those government payments ended Oct. 1. “We’re gonna be struggling until they figure out what they’re doing,” said home daycare provider Kaylene Hilton. Most home daycare providers in the state normally receive about a thousand dollars a month in weekly food reimbursements.
• In Maine, the state is out of left-over funds from last year to provide home heating assistance to low-income residents. Vouchers for the federally funded Low-Income Heating Assistance Program (LIHEAP) program are being delayed until the tea party relents in its crusade and lets the government get back to providing this and other assistance. Last fall and winter, LIHEAP helped some 55,000 Mainers earning 150 percent of the poverty level or less to heat their homes.
• Farmers can't depend on daily reports from the government for prices of corn and hogs and other commodities and livestock. In Polo, Illinois, Brian Duncan said: "We don't know the value of a hog in the market place. It starts out as an annoyance. It goes to frustration. Then a headache. And then it becomes a big deal because just because the government's shut down doesn't mean agriculture stops." With winter not far away, Duncan can't get the federal assistance he needs to build a new environmentally friendly hog pen. Investment on the commodities trading floors, usually brisk, has stalled out for lack of data.
• Tax refunds for October 15 filers will not go out until the shutdown is over, but if you got an extension to delay filing until now, you still must meet that deadline.
• Local airports are suffering from the shutdown because furloughs of FAA and TSA workers mean planes at smaller terminals have been grounded. It's more than revenue lost from not being able to book a flight, fuel companies, crews, hotels and restaurants are affected as well because. For every plane that lands or takes off, there is money to be made. At Stuart Whitham Field in Florida, Fairwind Air Charter, an employer of 70, president Alexander Beringer needs to get three new planes certified by the FAA but it is, of course, closed. So the planes are grounded. Meanwhile, as the cash flow is cut off, the fixed costs remain.
• No more forensic rape kits may be available in the District of Columbia if the shutdown continues. Not only are the kits now given to victims when they arrive at the hospital, they are assigned an advocate who will be with them through the entire process of dealing with the criminal justice system and bureaucratic red tape. The Network for Victim Recovery of D.C. and the D.C. Forensic Nurse Examiners that provide these services depend on federal and local funds to keep going. There is enough money for that until the end of the month.