The state of our Nation

By Isabella Pena

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   An event in the nation that is most commonly only around one week has lasted almost a month at this point. Job layoffs of mostly private-sector positions have been popular during this time, but the specific number of how many have been fired due to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ inability to work properly during the government shutdown, and without a head leader. The last Commissioner of the BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics), Erika McEntarfer, was fired in 2025 by the current President because of the unsatisfactory results being provided about the recent job statistics of the nation to the President. The current acting commissioner is William J. Wiatrowski, serving while there is no permanent leader of the BLS. One nomination was made for E.J. Antoni, but the White House formally withdrew that decision just last month in September.

   An estimated 32,000 private-sector workers have been fired since the beginning of the government shutdown. This data was provided by MSNBC during a recent news coverage on the shutdown. Also extremely recently, nearly all journalists who used to hold an office or report directly from the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., quit their jobs en masse and were recorded leaving the building with all of their belongings. This was due to a new policy on how they were going to continue reporting on classified information, which held many new restrictions. There are now fifteen reporters left in the Pentagon, compared to the previously estimated hundreds from years before.

   Directly being influenced by the government shutdown of 23 days (on the day of writing this, but the first day was October 1st), the U.S. Department of Agriculture, or USDA, is unable to continue providing SNAP benefits into the month of November if Congress is left inactive. Many people who are being supported by SNAP, short for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, have recently been notified of a potential month or months of no provided money for food. Due to no funding and administration by Congress, SNAP cannot run for very long at all on its own, without a funding bill to stay operational. This is going to impact up to 42 million citizens in America, including me.

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   Speaking from a personal perspective, SNAP is the main way my family is able to buy our groceries, because food is so expensive that we ourselves cannot afford it without help. I live in a household of two adult women, one adult man, two teenage children, and one infant (myself included in this); moreover, ALL of us rely on SNAP to be able to afford our monthly groceries, especially food for my baby niece. I cannot imagine what my family, or other families, are going to do for the month of November to be able to purchase food that is imperative to our prosperity.

   If this trend continues, other bigger projects and organizations could momentarily pause as well. Veteran and military aid is currently being funded via alternative funds, but that is only predicted to last up to a month, and we are rapidly approaching that mark. Social security, Medicare, and Medicaid are also in jeopardy for everyone in the nation if this shutdown continues, for the same reason SNAP has been paused. These are not the only regular processes that have been paused as well, only the ones I have chosen to mention in this specific article. I encourage any reading this to look into the nation right now and see what other disruptions are happening.

   What we don’t need is two parties or people in high-ranking government positions pointing fingers at who “caused the shutdown,” whether intentionally or not. What we NEED is for the government to start functioning again to prevent current living situations from becoming even worse than they are right now. This article wasn’t written because I was told to, but rather because I want others to know.