Welcome to Day 23 of the federal shutdown, now the second-longest ever. With no resolution in sight, the “record” for a government closure — 35 days, in 2018-2019 — could easily be broken.
The longer the shutdown lasts, the harsher the impact on Massachusetts, where the economy is already struggling with slowdowns in biotech and higher education and the uncertainty created by tariffs.
The latest: The Senate on Thursday rejected a pair of bills — one backed by Republicans, the other by Democrats — that would have paid military service members, along with some or all federal workers during the shutdown. As a result, active-duty military personnel may miss their first full paychecks on Wednesday.
Democrats want to permanently extend Affordable Care Act subsidies before agreeing to a deal, a condition Republicans have rejected.
Hardest hit so far are roughly 1.4 million federal workers who have been furloughed or are working without pay.
The Trump administration has also moved to fire thousands more federal employees and deny others back pay once the shutdown ends, contrary to federal law.
Pain is already being felt across the Washington metro area, home to a heavy concentration of government civilian workers. Boston won’t be spared.
Local angle: Federal workers account for just 1 percent of Massachusetts employment — about 45,000 jobs — but the state still has a lot on the line: Washington-funded social programs, infrastructure projects, and research contracts.
Even tourism is hurting, with Massachusetts losing an estimated $18.6 million in visitor spending per week.
“Every event that I go to around the city, I run into a Boston resident who’s affected by this in one way or another,” Mayor Michelle Wu told reporters on Wednesday.
Economists estimate that every week the government is idle trims national GDP growth by roughly 0.1 percentage point, or about $30 billion. Each passing week raises the risk of a chain reaction: consumers postponing purchases, businesses freezing hiring or investments, and wary investors retreating.
“The hit to the job market has been on the margin so far, but job losses will soon pick up as government contractors pull back on their payrolls,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “If the shutdown does extend well into November, the disruption to government services will intensify, with broader economic implications.”
Federal workers who are furloughed and not being paid can apply for unemployment benefits, but those who are required to work cannot — even if their paychecks are on hold.
Zoom in: If the government remains closed into next month, tens of thousands of Massachusetts families face the loss of federally funded programs covering child care, heating bills, and school lunches.
That’s in addition to the looming freeze on SNAP food payments to more than 1 million Massachusetts recipients and nutrition assistance for 126,000 participants in a special program for women and children.
Delays in these programs could create ripple effects for landlords, grocers, and heating-oil dealers, as well as for social-service nonprofits.
“The state funding cannot begin to match what the federal government provides,” Governor Maura Healey told reporters on Wednesday.
Partisan cuts: The state is heavily reliant on federal funding, with about a quarter of its $61 billion in budgeted revenues this year coming from Washington.
President Trump hasn’t shied away from wielding the government’s financial leverage.
“We’re not closing up Republican programs, because we think they work, so the Democrats are getting killed,” he said last week. “We’re going to be closing up Democrat programs that we disagree with, and they’re never going to open again.”
On Oct. 2, the Trump administration canceled $466 million of energy projects in the state, part of $7.6 billion of terminations nationally.
Universities, hospitals, and research organizations are bracing for further cuts after losing up to $2.6 billion in grants from the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation.
At UMass Amherst, researchers have been told that new grant payments and contract renewals could be delayed, forcing some labs to pause hiring or scale back projects. Even short interruptions can cause lasting damage: graduate students lose stipends, contractors miss payments, and time-sensitive experiments may have to be restarted.
Hundreds of millions in funding to help pay for the replacement of two aging bridges that carry traffic on and off Cape Cod are in doubt after an administration official announced a pause in $11 billion in US Army Corps of Engineers projects targeting Democratic cities.
Final thought: The economy remains on a healthy track, but confidence among businesses and consumers is waning.
The Associated Industries of Massachusetts Business Confidence Index fell in September, the seventh consecutive month that the measure was below the line separating optimism from pessimism. The University of Michigan’s Index of Consumer Sentiment is running more than 15 points below its average last year and more than 40 points below pre-COVID levels.
In a Substack post, economist Paul Krugman cited three reasons for the disconnect: Other than AI spending, much of the economy is lackluster; layoffs haven’t surged, but jobs are harder to find; and while the affluent are thriving thanks to a strong stock market, the rest of the country isn’t.
If the federal shutdown ends soon, pressure on the economy will ease. All bets are off if it drags on.
“No collection, however secure, is entirely beyond reach.”
— Lynda Albertson, head of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art, on Sunday’s brazen jewel heist at the Louvre.
Rackets: Former Celtic Terry Rozier and Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups were among more than 30 people charged in a federal gambling probe involving the Mafia.
Back door: Boston-based DraftKings plans to offer wagering through a “prediction market” in an effort to dodge state gambling bans.
White flag: The University of Virginia agreed to abide by White House guidance forbidding discrimination in admissions and hiring, becoming the latest campus to strike a deal with the Trump administration.
Friends in high places: President Trump pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, a top cryptocurrency executive and supporter who served prison time for failing to stop criminals from using the company’s platform.
Powerful partner: Several quantum-computing companies are in talks to give the Commerce Department equity stakes in exchange for federal funding, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Dollars to donuts: Why Dunkin’s viral Spidey D ad campaign is the future of marketing.
Hitting a wall: Boston.com, a free service of Boston Globe Media since its launch 30 years ago, is adding a paywall.
Toy capital? On the “Say More” podcast, Globe journalists Jon Chesto and Shirley Leung debate whether Massachusetts should be celebrating stealing Hasbro’s headquarters from Rhode Island and whether corporate relocations matter anymore.
$100 million
— The cost of improvements to One Lincoln Street in Boston by owner DivcoWest to attract tenants to the largely vacant office tower.
👨👩👧👦 The Closer
Smoot isn’t a surname you hear too often.
So when reading the obituary earlier this week of George F. Smoot, an American physicist and Nobel laureate who helped explain the creation of the universe, I wondered: Was he was the same Smoot made famous in the legendary MIT prank of 1958?
For those who don’t recall the stunt, it involved MIT students rolling a 5-foot-7-inch classmate named Smoot end-over-end across the Massachusetts Avenue bridge.
It turns out George Smoot wasn’t that Smoot — though he also went to MIT.
In 2006, Gideon Gil of the Globe (now a top editor at STAT, our sister publication that covers health and science), explained:
“[He was] Oliver R. Smoot Jr., a 1962 MIT graduate, whom George Smoot describes as a distant relative on his website. In October 1958, the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity used Oliver Smoot, the shortest pledge that fall, to measure the distance across the bridge, the route from the fraternity house in Boston to the main campus in Cambridge. The result: 364.4 smoots — markings that the fraternity repaints annually.”
Now, you history buffs may be thinking: Do these fellows have any relation to Reed Smoot, the Utah senator who co-sponsored the infamous Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930? Yes, according to The New York Times, which reported that Oliver and Reed Smoot were distant relatives.
It will probably be a while before you read another story with three Smoots in it.
🗓️ On this date in 2001, Apple released the iPod. The company sold an estimated 450 million of the music players before the line was discontinued in 2022.
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Larry Edelman can be reached at larry.edelman@globe.com.
