As President Trump reached his first full year in office, the country is also facing its 19th government shutdown in the country’s history. The shutdown has made its way into the work week Monday and is raising a concern among people who are worried about the future of children’s healthcare as well as government employees worried about their jobs.
Both Democrats and Republicans are calling each other the cause of the 2018 government shutdown. President Trump has publically pointed the finger at Democrats, while Democratic Minority Leader Charles Schumer has called out the Trump administration for causing the shutdown.
While political parties are pointing their fingers at each other as the cause of the government shutdown, it’s the people of the country who may feel the impact when federal jobs are compromised and the Children’s Health Care Program is left without funding.
Personal finance site WalletHub crunched the numbers to determine which states are affected the most by a government shutdown. To produce their data, they analyzed six different metrics to see how people will be affected by the 2018 shutdown. A point value (weight) was given to each metric and was scored on a 100-point scale. They calculated the weighted average to produce the rankings.
The metrics used in their research range from the number of federal jobs in the state to the percentage of children under the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) to a state’s access to national parks. There are a total of six different metrics used in their study.
Which states are affected the most by a government shutdown?
According to WalletHub, Washington, D.C., Maryland, Virginia, Alaska and Hawaii are the areas that a government shutdown affect the most.
Minnesota, Michigan, Indiana, Delaware and Ohio are the five states that are least affected by a government shutdown.
According to the data, Washington, D.C is (unsurprisingly) at the very top of the list of areas that are most affected by a government shutdown with 70.42 out of 100 points. The main reason is because D.C. has the highest share of federal jobs and the highest federal contract dollars per capita. WalletHub identifies Minnesota as the state that is least affected by a government shutdown with only 13.31 points.
Ranking of states that would be most affected by the government shutdown
Click on the interactive map to see where each state ranks. High ranking (darker shades) states are more affected by a government shutdown than lighter shaded states.
Aside from ranking each state individually per metric, they looked at how red and blue states collectively are affected by a government shutdown. According to their data, blue states (Democrats) appear to be affected the most over red states (Republicans).
