Adam Serwer worries about the shutdown’s effects on food aid:
If the shutdown lasts into November, Americans reliant on SNAP could find themselves without aid, depending on the fiscal health of the state or the priorities of state leadership. A spokesperson for the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration told MSNBC that “If the shutdown continues beyond October, the State of Indiana will assess its resources and consider its options for continuing to provide SNAP benefits.” Similarly, a spokesperson for Mississippi’s Department of Human Services said they would look to the USDA for guidance.
Sasha Abramsky considers the mental toll this takes on the poor:
We don’t know how long the shutdown will last, and that uncertainty, too, is harder on the poor. The stress of not knowing what tomorrow will bring can be debilitating.
If you’re on food stamps, the fact that the Department of Agriculture believes that it can fund the program through the end of October is better than nothing—but the prospect of not being able to pay for food in November is anxiety-provoking in a way that puts even more pressure on families that already have their fair share of it.
When I was reporting my book “The American Way of Poverty,” several people talked to me about the impact that the stress associated with poverty had on them: on their ability to focus, on their mood, on their blood pressure, on their energy level. In late 2011, an ex-accountant who had lost her job at the start of the recession and spiraled downward spoke of losing weight due to her worries. A man who had lost the business he had owned talked of how his plight made him feel “worthless.” A hungry teen-ager in a suburb east of Los Angeles told me that he cried daily.
The Dish 