As many individuals know, the U.S. is in a current government shutdown. This shutdown started on Oct. 1, 2025, and is ongoing. However, though that is common knowledge, many students don’t know why there is a government shutdown and what implications it can bring.
What is a government shutdown?
A government shutdown is where the Senate cannot pass the annual budget. This budget is the first piece of legislation that needs to be passed in order to pass others since they need to know how much money can be used. The annual government budget includes how much the U.S. government spends on items such as Healthcare, Education, and even National Security matters.
So, on Oct. 1, 2025, both the Republicans and Democrats failed to receive enough votes on each of their funding proposal legislation, and this put the U.S. into a government shutdown.
Why is there a government shutdown?
Now many people think it is easy to fix this issue—it is not. Gracie Barrett, 26′, shared that before the government shutdown because she didn’t know what it was. However, she expressed, “I didn’t know what it was, even though it doesn’t impact me personally, I understand that it impacts many families where they might not be getting paid.”
Democrat and Republican lawmakers have to compromise to form a final budget legislation to have President Trump sign into law. However, this is very hard to do since each political party has different ways, they want to spend their money.
The main issue of the current government budget legislation is over healthcare spending. The Democratic Party wants to put money towards boosting the Affordable Care Act and other healthcare programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.
Meanwhile, the Republican Party wants to spend more money on defense and border security and make cuts to the Department of Education and the Department of Energy.
Has this happened before?
Over the past five decades there have been 22 government shutdowns. Here are the total government shutdowns:
What is different about this government shutdown?
This current government shutdown is due to disagreements between the President’s Big Beautiful Bill that calls for cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, the Department of Education, and other government departments. Additionally, this is the longest lasting government shutdown in the past five decades.
The severity of this government shutdown is significant because the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) ran out of funding, this caused many states to go without food stamps to give out to families. According to the Center of Budget and Policy Priorities, approximately 40 million individuals in the U.S. in 2024 rely on food stamps.
This is about 12% of the population.
Furthermore, President Trump was ordered by a federal judge to use emergency funding to fund SNAP as he looks for other ways to fund SNAP.
How does this government shutdown affect Maryland?
In Maryland, this government shutdown can cause many implications and impact people’s families directly. According to CBC News, “Maryland is home to more than 160,000 federal civilian jobs and about 225,000 jobs supported by federal contracts, according to the governor’s office.”
Additionally, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that 750,000 federal employees that live in Maryland will be furloughed, and not receive pay until the shutdown ends. This is going to impact many families who have parents that work for the federal government, they will not be paid which can cause financial strains on people’s money spending habits.
More families will be impacted with SNAP benefits being cut, the emergency fund being used to pay for SNAP is around 4 million dollars and each family who receives SNAP benefits gets 190 dollars on their SNAP card. Now everyone who would receive that 190 dollars, is only going to receive half that amount, and this affects 1 in 8 families from Maryland who use SNAP.
How can students further learn about this?
There is so much information about what is happening regarding this government shutdown, so it is extremely important for students to understand the legit facts of the situation.
Mrs. Robinson, one of Brunswick High School’s government teachers, believes it is very important for students to understand what is occurring with this government shutdown because “in our specific area being so close to D.C. […] some students have parents who haven’t been working for over a month now or some kids have parents who have been working, but haven’t been getting paid. Imagine if you are one of the people who are supposed to work, but you aren’t getting paid, but you still need to pay childcare for your children.”
Mrs. Robinson states, “[…] inflation for food has risen by 30% over the past 5 years. Since 1 of every 8 people in the U.S. use SNAP benefits, this will have a tremendous impact not only on starvation in America but also ripple effects in the economy.” To help students understand what is going on, Mrs. Robinson shares daily news about the government shutdown and other events going on.
“The other issue to understand is why the government shut down—our politics nowadays are extremely polarized and members within Congress are less likely to compromise and sometimes the different branches of government don’t appear to want to compromise. But compromise was built into our Constitution, and I personally believe most Americans want the two political parties to compromise more often,” said Mrs. Robinson.
How can you help?
The most impactful thing that has happened due to the government shutdown is the scarce funding of foodbanks. There are many food banks located in the Brunswick area, some are listed on the side. Make sure to donate food if you can to these banks, in order to help families get through the holiday season. In addition, participate in the drives that occur at BHS. Currently there is a hygiene drive that is benefiting the Students Homelessness Initiative Project, NEHS is hosting a book drive, and then from November 19-20 BHS SGA is hosting a turkey bowl where you can donate food to bowl a frozen turkey. More resources to take advantage of are located on the Maryland Government Website. Governor Wes Moore has made announcements and more state funds available to families who have members that work for the federal government.
Check out unemployment insurance, food assistance, and more here.