The Government Shutdown Will Get Very Real on November 1

For much of the country, excluding federal employees, the government-shutdown crisis gripping Congress has been a distant battle between politicians indulging in their usual partisan squabbles. No matter who they blame for the shutdown, regular people don’t appear to be that engaged. An Economist-YouGov survey released earlier this week showed about three-fourths of Americans saying the shutdown has affected them “a little” or “not at all.”

That’s about to change. Yes, some effects of the shutdown will gradually manifest themselves, particularly the missed paychecks for federal employees (e.g., active military servicemembers) who haven’t been protected by questionably legal diversion of funds by the Trump administration. But on November 1, assuming (as is wise) that the shutdown doesn’t somehow end before then, a double whammy is going to strike large swaths of the country. First, SNAP benefits are going to run out in at least half the country, as Politico reports:

Millions of low-income Americans will lose access to food aid on Nov. 1, when half of states plan to cut off benefits due to the government shutdown.

Twenty-five states told POLITICO that they are issuing notices informing participants of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — the nation’s largest anti-hunger initiative — that they won’t receive checks next month. Those states include California, Alabama, Arkansas, Hawaii, Indiana, Mississippi and New Jersey. Others didn’t respond to requests for comment in time for publication.

USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service recently told every state that they’d need to hold off on distributing benefits until further notice, according to multiple state agencies.

And it could quickly get worse:

Under SNAP, which serves more than 42 million people, families receive an average of $187.20 per month to pay for groceries. The pause in benefits would kick in just before the Thanksgiving holiday and add further strain on food banks and pantries during a typically busy season.

Second, November 1 marks the beginning of “open enrollment” season for the 24 million Americans, many of them middle class, who get their health insurance via Obamacare’s private-sector marketplace. Most of them will get a nasty shock when they realize (a) premiums are going up by double-digit percentages in most places and (b) their out-of-pocket costs will more than double on average if the “enhanced premium subsidies” for these policies enacted in 2021 expire at the end of the year. Congressional Democrats are, of course, demanding some action be taken to extend these subsidies before they supply the votes necessary to reopen the federal government, while Republicans have said they won’t negotiate over the subsidies until the government is reopened. But what probably seemed like an abstract argument until now is going to be a very big “kitchen-table issue” once people realize they may need to pay more than twice as much for the sketchy but essential health-insurance coverage Obamacare provides. And as with the SNAP cuts, the impact could quickly be compounded over time, since many healthier people will likely go without insurance, making the risk pool for Obamacare policies shakier and the costs more expensive.

The other thing that’s going to happen on or soon after November 1 is Donald Trump’s claim that the shutdown just affects “Democrat things” will be exposed as not only cruel but completely inaccurate. OMB director Russell Vought has added to the pain of the shutdown in blue cities and states with selective shutdowns of programs and projects. But as Toluse Olorunnipa explains at The Atlantic, “the pain for the president’s supporters will increase significantly if the lapse in government funding continues into November”:

Farmers, a key constituency for Trump, are among those getting hurt. The Department of Agriculture halted crucial farm aid just as planning for the 2026 planting season was getting under way. Furloughs and mass layoffs, meanwhile, have decimated a small-business-lending program popular in rural communities. Federal subsidies keeping small-town airports afloat are scheduled to run out within days. And despite what Trump might suggest, the majority of the federal employees who are currently going without a paycheck live outside of the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. Trump-friendly West Virginia, for instance, has among the highest number of government workers per capita in the country.

The above-mentioned Obamacare subsidy expiration will also create some specific red-state carnage, since reliance on Obamacare markets for health insurance is significantly greater in those red states that refused the Affordable Care Act’s optional Medicaid expansion.

So how will the November developments affect the battle in Congress? Clearly, heat on Republicans to negotiate over the Obamacare subsidies is going to increase significantly with both sides anxiously waiting to see if a very disengaged Trump notices the political risk and imposes a deal on his Obamacare-hating troops. If that doesn’t happen, though, some Democrats may conclude they’ve achieved a political victory by pinning higher health-care costs (both the Obamacare premium spike and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s Medicaid cuts) on the GOP, and can now vote to reopen the government.

In other words, it’s unclear the standoff will be resolved soon, but it is clear Americans will start paying a lot more attention to it.