Title : THE SHUTDOWN'S GROUND ZERO
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THE SHUTDOWN'S GROUND ZERO
‘Never seen it like this’: In a
town of low-paid federal
workers, the shutdown stings
By: Rachel Chasen
The Washington Post
21 January 2019
The median salary for federal employees in Camp Springs is $48,661, according to data compiled by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments. That’s less than half the $104,275 median for federal workers in all of Maryland and well below the median income for all workers — both public and private — in the state.
That means the partial government shutdown that began Dec. 22 is hitting especially hard here. Economists say the standoff is costing the D.C. region more than $100 million a day,and Maryland officials estimate that 172,000 federal workers in the state are losing $778 million in salary every two weeks. But in Camp Springs, the loss is measured in empty chairs at beauty shops, a pronounced slowdown at local restaurants and school-lunch balances that have run dry.
Managers and owners of a hair-braiding shop, a real estate business, a 7-Eleven and other stores echoed the frustration. Harmon, who runs his own personal training company in Camp Springs, said he has offered to provide some of his customers who are federal workers, or whose parents are federal workers, with free sessions. But many have been too proud to accept.
“It’s just us four,” said Cropp, who lives with his aunt, his grandmother and his mom, who has picked up extra shifts at Pepco.
Take Care Everyone!
town of low-paid federal
workers, the shutdown stings
The Washington Post
21 January 2019
Annie Ha spends hours waiting for customers in her empty nail salon. Leroy Harmon is spotting personal training customers for sessions they can no longer afford. In a town where a federal job has long been a foothold to the middle class, the number of free lunches given out at the local elementary school jumped from zero to 41 last week.
This is Camp Springs, Md., an unincorporated town of 20,000 just outside the nation’s capital that has one of the largest concentrations of low-wage federal workers in the D.C. region.
The median salary for federal employees in Camp Springs is $48,661, according to data compiled by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments. That’s less than half the $104,275 median for federal workers in all of Maryland and well below the median income for all workers — both public and private — in the state.
That means the partial government shutdown that began Dec. 22 is hitting especially hard here. Economists say the standoff is costing the D.C. region more than $100 million a day,and Maryland officials estimate that 172,000 federal workers in the state are losing $778 million in salary every two weeks. But in Camp Springs, the loss is measured in empty chairs at beauty shops, a pronounced slowdown at local restaurants and school-lunch balances that have run dry.Federal workers from a host of agencies, furloughed or working without pay, find themselves missing monthly bill payments or visiting food pantries for the first time. The businesses they usually patronize are feeling their absence.
“I’ve never seen it like this,” Ha said, sitting in her empty salon in a strip mall off Allentown Road, which borders Joint Base Andrews in Prince George’s County. Customer traffic is down between 40 and 50 percent, she said. She has enough money saved to cover three months of rent but is nervous about what will happen after that.
“And I worry about my customers,” she said. “I hope they come back.”
Managers and owners of a hair-braiding shop, a real estate business, a 7-Eleven and other stores echoed the frustration. Harmon, who runs his own personal training company in Camp Springs, said he has offered to provide some of his customers who are federal workers, or whose parents are federal workers, with free sessions. But many have been too proud to accept.“It’s been terrible,” said Kazi Hasan, whose family owns 15 “America’s Best Wings” restaurants in Prince George’s. “If things continue to go this way, then people like us might have to shut down a few places.”
A few doors down from the wing shop is Giant Food, where people lined up an hour early in freezing temperatures Jan. 12 for a food giveaway in the parking lot hosted by the Capital Area Food Bank. In all, 600 people came. The food was gone within an hour. The organization hosted a similar event this weekend, which drew nearly 200.
In a Camp Springs laundromat, college sophomore Christian Cropp said he has been cooking more and going out to eat less since his aunt, whom he described as the primary breadwinner for their family, was furloughed from her job at the U.S. Agency for International Development.
“It’s just us four,” said Cropp, who lives with his aunt, his grandmother and his mom, who has picked up extra shifts at Pepco.“I want to work, but I’m in school,” he said as he waited for clothes to dry. “I just want it to stop.”
At Allenwood Elementary School, the number of students needing free lunches has soared since Jan. 11, when federal workers missed their first paychecks.
Before then, none of the 430 students received free lunch, said Principal Shawna Fagbuyi. Many parents at the school, she said, are college educated, engaged in their children’s educations and “don’t want to claim need.”
Nonetheless, there were 28 students whose lunch accounts were empty Tuesday and 41 on Wednesday.
The school is able to pay for the lunches because Prince George’s County Public Schools has raised more than $30,000 as part of a 10,000-meal challenge it launched in light of the shutdown.
Fagbuyi said the next dilemma could come when teachers have to collect money for an upcoming field trip.
The silver lining, she said, is that parents who have been furloughed are increasingly showing up in the classrooms to volunteer.
NOTE:
SHUTDOWN : These excerpts are from a longer article which is here.
We who live in Washington know Camp Springs, Maryland, as the town just outside the Beltway adjacent to Andrews Air Force Base where Air Force One is housed. (The base is now officially called "Joint Base Andrews" or some other such official moniker but to us it's still Andrews AFB and always will be.*) 
This article probably isn't indicative of what's happening in general around the country as a result of the shutdown. After all, Camp Springs Federal residents don't wield huge salaries like some government employees and their welfare and well-being are directly dependent on their bi-weekly Federal paychecks.
But I think you can extrapolate that the shutdown is having impacts outside the Washington region where 1 in 6 of 1.87 million Federal workers live, much like the ones highlighted in this piece. Perhaps just not as dire nor as costly or direct, but nonetheless impactful. The shutdown in general drains money from our economy and even when employees receive their back pay overall negative impacts remain.
But Trump, as we've seen over and over again, doesn't seem to care about the fate of ordinary Americans except for those who are his fans. Plus, of course, the already wealthy. But this article shows just how devastating his actions can be.
* Washingtonians are averse to the Federal Government's name-changing games over local landmarks. Those of us who have lived here for a couple of decades still avoid calling National Airport its official name: "Reagan Washington National Airport." Every time I arrive at the airport I cringe as I pass the new statue of Ronald Reagan that was recently erected in a circle of greenery along the entrance roadway. Don't know who authorized this tribute to a President who actually had no use for us who live here but I'm hoping that one day an out of control bus will knock the thing down.But Trump, as we've seen over and over again, doesn't seem to care about the fate of ordinary Americans except for those who are his fans. Plus, of course, the already wealthy. But this article shows just how devastating his actions can be.
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