RI Ranked One of Most Impacted States by Federal Shutdown

RI Ranked One of Most Impacted States by Federal Shutdown

The federal government has been shut down for a little more than 13 days and Rhode Island is one of the states it is impacting the most.

According to a recent study completed by WalletHub, Rhode Island is the 11th most affected state in the country.

Last month U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse condemned the shutdown. Whitehouse issued the following statement on the looming shutdown of parts of the federal government following President Donald Trump’s rejection of the stopgap spending bill passed with broad bipartisan support in the Senate:

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“The American people want leaders to do their jobs and govern with a steady hand.  But President Trump has upended the agreement he reached with his own party, threatening the paychecks of hundreds of thousands of Americans less than a week before Christmas and sending markets tumbling. Rather than working with Democrats, Republicans are choosing to bring government agencies to a halt, including the agency charged with protecting our border.  We have seen plenty of pointless brinksmanship from congressional Republicans in recent years, but this takes the cake,” said Whitehouse.

“President Trump and Washington Republicans are putting states’ economies at risk with their reckless political games in Washington, D.C. Hundreds of thousands of hard-working Americans will be without a paycheck during the holidays, simply because the President and Congressional Republicans want to score political points with the far right. This is exactly why Americans are sick and tired of Washington, and looking to the states for leadership amid Donald Trump’s chaos,” said Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo in a statement.

Rhode Island also ranks as the most affected state in New England.

“When the government shuts down, certain federal employees work without pay or receive a furlough. This includes over 41,000 law enforcement officers, 52,000 IRS workers and 96 percent of NASA employees,” said WalletHub.

The Rankings

Rhode Island is ranked behind Alabama and Arizona, who rank 9th and 10th overall.

RI ranks ahead of Montana and Maine, who rank 12th and 13th respectively.

The state most affected by the shutdown is District of Columbia, while the state that is least affected is Minnesota.

See the rankings in the map below

 

The Method

States depend on the federal government for a great deal, from employment to key benefits.

To measure the relative impact of the January 2019 partial government shutdown on each state, as well as the District of Columbia, WalletHub identified five basic metrics that speak to how people across the country will be affected by the absence of government services.

Finally, they analyzed publicly available data from official sources to score the shutdown’s impact by state, according to the following rubric. Each metric was scored on a 100-point scale, with 100 representing the biggest impact from the government shutdown.

They then determined each state and the District’s weighted average across all metrics to calculate its overall score and used the resulting scores to construct our final ranking.

• Share of Federal Jobs: Double Weight (~28.57 Points)
• Federal Contract Dollars Per Capita: Full Weight (~14.29 Points)
• % of Families Receiving SNAP (Food Stamps): Double Weight (~28.57 Points)
• Real Estate as Percentage of Gross State Product: Full Weight (~14.29 Points)
• Access to National Parks: Full Weight (~14.29 Points)