The sight was staggering in Prince George’s County, Md., home to more than 60,000 federal workers: middle-class professionals lined up for boxes of pasta, protein and produce to feed their families.
After a two-hour wait, Wanda Bright had finally reached the front of the line — just as the first batch of supplies ran out.
The Capital Area Food Bank had started the day with 300 boxes, enough for 150 government employees to receive two boxes each. It turned out that the need was even greater.
Those are two different things. Gov workers, especially if unionized, aren’t living large; maybe contractors will be ‘on par’ with outside jobs because their job is an outside job. But internal gov workers typically make noticeably less than their external counterparts because their either union or they work for that higher-purpose feeling and their bosses have optimized wages down to suit.
For example, even though I’m a contractor to merely a gov-adjacent group, I work a 200k job for barely half that. And yes, the dead sea effect is chronic. (But I am union, so I get perqs)
Anyway, gov people will feel a crunch very early too, as “care for our fellow human” isn’t a payment option at Kroger.
I’m lumping the contractors who work adjacent to the gov employees as the same group tbh because I’m seeing them laid off in droves too.
Shutdown means no contract extensions means employees just aren’t there anymore instead of laid off. It’s another method of hurting his opponents.