The federal government shutdown has lasted all month and is on pace to become the longest on record.
While history has shown that the economy typically rebounds from a shutdown within a couple of months, each day it drags on brings a greater risk that the economy won’t just bend, but will start to break — and rupture livelihoods in the process, economists say.
“The economy is fragile and, therefore, something like a government shutdown could become a bigger problem a lot faster than people might think,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics.
The negative effects start to build on themselves very rapidly and the collateral damage becomes more widespread, said Diane Swonk, chief economist at KPMG.
“That’s kind of like a snowball rolling down a hill, gathering momentum and mass,” she said.
Predicting something that has becoming increasingly unpredictable is an impossible task, but here’s a look at how the shutdown could ripple through critical avenues of everyday life.
Jobs
Prior to the shutdown, the US job market was already on its back.
It’s been
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