The shutdown hurts. Two real life examples.

Wilbur Ross

Wilbur Ross, Commerce Secretary: "I don't really quite understand."

"These folks will get back pay once this whole thing gets settled down. So there is really not a good excuse why there should be a liquidity crisis now. Now true, the people might have to pay a little bit of interest. I don't really quite understand. . . . 

You're talking about 800,000 workers, and while I feel sorry for the individuals that have hardship cases. . . .you're talking about a third of a percent on GDP, so its not like it's a gigantic number overall."

          

      Wilbur Ross, age 81, net worth $2.5 billion.

To some people, the shutdown is more than an inconvenience. 

Odd resemblance

Not every one is a billionaire. A lot of people are young, and a lot of people work from paycheck to paycheck. Plus, a lot of people have business to do with the government, and they are stuck because it isn't doing its job.

I present two, real life situations, that I see personally, up close. I am changing the names, and lightly disguising the situations.

A young man is buying a farm. "William" is a young man of 25 who farms the 80 acres owned by his grandparents. It currently grows profitable crops of alfalfa and grass hay. It is class one soil (the best), flat, with flood irrigation, the simplest and easiest. He farms it evenings and weekends, while maintaining his day job as a mechanic and doing custom farming for neighboring farms. He has hustle. The grandparents collect the farm income and the grandson uses the farm equipment in his custom farm business, plus he is getting good training from an experienced farmer.  Win-win.

Young Farmer

The grandparents are delighted to have a family member to sell the farm to on easy terms. They want it to stay in the family. They need some cash from the sale to help them deal with medical expenses. The grandfather is in a nursing home the grandmother would like to get things settled because bills are accumulating.  Happily for everyone, the grandson is ready to buy them out, right now.

Again, win-win, right? No. There is a problem. 

Farms are complicated to finance through normal channels because the security for the loan is illiquid and because the natural buyers of farms are young and usually lack liquid collateral. That scares banks. The Department of Agriculture established a program to meet this need, a low interest loan program targeted to allow young, experienced farmers to purchase farm acreage where there is good evidence that profitable farming can take place--exactly this circumstance.

Everyone wants to get things settled, but the government is closed. His paperwork is just sitting there.

So the family waits, in limbo. This is the time William should be finalizing decisions for next year's crops, making arrangements with neighbor farms regarding custom farming duties, seeing about leasing out a portion of the farm to a specialty crop, and giving the grandparents the cash they need to pay medical bills. 

He is stuck. The government is shut down.

Biologist

A young woman is lining up seasonal work as a wildlife biologist. "Linda" is 26 and has a new Masters Degree in Wildlife Biology from a top school. The early career progression for wildlife biologists is to do seasonal work in April to October contracts. The jobs typically involve field census work, for example counting the fish hatchlings or monitoring over-winter deer survival, which data is used in hydroelectric dam operations and determining hunting seasons. 

January is the hiring season, when young biologists are matched up with situations. Linda has cast a net of job applications to be hired for this year's field work--a job in Montana, one in Idaho, and two in Oregon--but everything is on hold. The websites to file applications are all on temporary shutdown. The process of reviewing applications and doing interviews would normally be going on now. It isn't. Eventually, presumably, the matchup will happen, but they will be making rush decisions, because they are missing a critical time window.

Meanwhile, there is a personal toll for Linda. She doesn't have a stock portfolio to fall back on. She rents her living space. She needs to be giving notice to her current landlord, and she needs to be lining up her living arrangement to start work in March or April or whenever and wherever, her next job is. She needs first, last, and a security deposit, and her current landlord wants 30 days notice, but she can't plan because everything is in limbo.

Federal Job Portal

She is stuck. The government is shut down.

William and Linda are two, real life examples of people hurt by this shutdown.

The public also suffers. There is a reason we count fish hatchlings. We need to know how much water we can run through the turbines and how much to spill to protect a salmon fishery. We want farms to be sold to the next generation of young farmers. It provides community stability--local people to serve on irrigation district boards, farm owners with community roots. 

Is anyone being hurt by the shutdown? Yes. Real people. William and Linda are real, and all of us are better off when they can get on with their lives. But they are stuck, waiting.