42 million people at risk of poverty

More than 42 million people have stopped receiving aid for purchasing food from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which puts them at high risk of poverty.

Furthermore, the absence of air traffic controllers, forced to continue working without pay, are caused flight delays and cancellations at airports from all over the country, and More than a million federal employees are not receiving their salaries.

“The Democrats’ obstructionism will break the record for the longest government shutdown in the history of the United States,” White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday.

However, republicans and democrats blame each other due to the paralysis, extended this Monday after a Republican measure to temporarily finance the Government failed in the Senate while negotiations continue.

The opposition conditions its support on the approval of more subsidies to the Obamacare health program, while the Republican majority – which controls both Houses of Congress – accuses them, without any basis, of wanting to benefit undocumented immigrants.

“The closure is a product of the intransigence of the president, who refuses to negotiate a balanced and fair budget,” said the Democratic leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, who blamed Trump and the Republicans for the paralysis.

“Americans should not pay the price for a political game that puts the country’s security and essential services at risk,” he added.

The current closure exceeds that of 2019, when during the previous Trump presidency the Government remained paralyzed for 35 days due to a dispute with the Democrats over the financing of the border wall with Mexico.

Then, more than 800,000 federal employees were forced to work without pay or were temporarily furloughed, a situation that threatens to repeat itself if a budget agreement is not reached soon. On this occasion, the number of federal employees who are not receiving a salary exceeds one million. Some are considered “essential” and report to work. Others have been temporarily suspended during the shutdown of the federal apparatus.

Los nuclear safety workers have also been suspended temporarily for the first time in US history.

The agency that oversees the security of the US nuclear arsenal has suspended most of its staff from employment and pay. 1.400 personaswhich has forced National Nuclear Security Administration facilities, including Pantex in Texas and Y-12 in Tennessee, into a safe shutdown mode.

But not only federal employees are not getting paid. Contractors who work indirectly for the federal government are also not paid. Additionally, they are not guaranteed back pay once the shutdown ends, CNN reports.

Plans that provide early childhood education and development to low-income children, the so-called Head Start program, are already beginning to lose funding. An estimated 140 programs in 41 states have already lost funding.

Also Obamacare premiums have risen sharply. To lift the government shutdown, Democrats demand negotiating an extension of additional subsidies for Obamacare premiums.

Policies have already gone up this year, even before those subsidies end. For some Obamacare enrollees, premiums could double or even triple.

The shutdown is also causing delays in mortgage approvals and cuts in Democratic states. For example, the Trump Administration has canceled infrastructure projects totaling $8 billion in California and New York in retaliation.