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February 25, 2019 • Issue 19:02:02

Government shutdown

imperils spending, growth

of work, and throttled federal grant payments to several
million additional individuals and firms, according to
published reports.

In Washington, D.C., once bustling restaurants were
practically deserted, and in some cases were forced to lay
off staff. But it wasn't just restaurants that lost sales, and
it wasn't just in Washington. "We had a carwash here
[operating] close to a government facility that lost money,"
said Dee Karawadra, president of Memphis-based Impact
PaySystem.

Grocers were particularly hard hit, as most of the U.S.
Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service
staff were furloughed. The FNS overseas federal initiatives
such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
By Patti Murphy The National Grocers Association said in a Jan. 17 statement
that "2,500 retailers across the country have experienced a
he U.S. economy is experiencing its longest eco- lapse in their SNAP licenses, and many other retailers have
nomic expansion in history – 116 months and been unable to acquire SNAP licenses for new or purchased
counting. Many economists expect the economy stores."
T to continue chugging along. However, there
have been and may be future bumps in the road, as evi- The total impact on retail sales remains uncertain. The U.S.
denced by the tug of war in Washington over funding for a Department of Commerce, which tracks and reports on key
wall on the nation's southern border. indicators (retail sales and personal income and spending
data) was one of the shuttered agencies, and as of February
Steven Blitz, chief U.S. economist at TS Lombard, said the 12 it had not yet published data for December.
five-week government shutdown clearly affected overall
economic conditions. "The [federal government] shutdown
is going to become a big thing," he said during a Jan.
14, 2019, meeting with reporters at the National Retail Contributed articles inside by:
Federation Big Show. "Spending goes away and will not be
replenished."
Steve Norell ............................................................................................32
An estimated 800,000 federal workers were furloughed Adam Atlas ..............................................................................................34
or forced to work without pay because they were deemed Suresh Dakshina ...................................................................................38
"essential" employees during the partial government Jeff Fortney .............................................................................................40
shutdown, which ended on Jan. 25. While all eventually Lauren Hanley-Brady ..........................................................................41
were paid, in many cases that took up to two weeks. The
shutdown also put at least 1 million federal contractors out TOC on page 3

Continued on page 30