Tag: King Center

It has been a week since the federal government shutdown, which took effect a minute past midnight on Oct. 1. Among the several federally funded initiatives impacted was the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which furloughed roughly 8,700 employees as a result. Federal workers for essential services like the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and the National Park Service are at work, but might not get paid next week if the shutdown continues. The House has been adjourned for the remainder of this week, so it looks like the shutdown will head into its third week.  

At the King Center in the Sweet Auburn Historic District, the level of quiet on a Tuesday morning was palpable. Ebenezer Baptist Church, a popular tourist attraction for its Church Talks series and tours of the former church home of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was closed due to the government shutdown. The sign behind the glass of the outdoor bulletin read: Closed in large black letters. Under that, “National Parks remain as accessible as possible during the federal government shutdown. However, some services may be limited or unavailable.”

Along with the church, the gift shop inside The King Center was closed. The government shutdown affects more workers outside of the 15% of federal workers who live and work in Washington, D.C. Between the King Center and other national parks, there are thousands of employees who will have their finances affected by this shutdown.

Earlier this week, the busiest airport in the country, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the lines outside of the main checkpoint in the domestic terminal were moving along. TSA agents could be seen checking IDs and scanning boarding passes. At Hartsfield-Jackson, the number of TSA employees and air traffic controllers affected is in the dozens. How those essential workers approach their daily duties will play a major part in how this shutdown will be remembered. 

The shutdown will result in lower-than-normal paychecks on October 15, if they are distributed at all. Furloughed workers will receive back pay when the shutdown is over, but for so many Americans, that might be a paycheck or two too late. 

This is the first government shutdown in six years, since the record-long shutdown that took place from 2018 to 2019. Government shutdowns usually happen because of disagreements over funding between the Democratic and Republican parties. The current shutdown had been brewing since early September, and as the fiscal year ended, the two parties could not agree on government spending, particularly related to health care funding.

In simplest terms, Democrats wanted to include Affordable Care Act subsidies and Medicaid protections in the recent stopgap funding. At the same time, Republicans wanted a “clean” funding bill without any changes to health care programs. This disagreement led to the shutdown on the morning of Oct. 1.

When government shutdowns take place, the impact doesn’t just affect high-ranking political officials on Capitol Hill; it affects everyday workers locally, right here in Georgia, where more than 110,000 are federal employees.

As a result of the current government shutdown, many federal employees are going without pay until an agreement is reached. “Certainly, we all have friends and family who know people who work for the federal government, including the CDC. If they’re furloughing half of the staff, that touches a lot of people in Atlanta,” said Staci Fox, president of the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute. The lack of pay during this indefinite shutdown period disadvantages households that rely on federal paychecks for living necessities.

The shutdown also comes at a time when many federal entities, such as the CDC, FDA, and Department of Education, had already faced layoffs due to reduced federal budgets. The CDC alone laid off more than 600 employees in August 2025, according to data provided by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) to the Associated Press.

In the midst of the shutdown, programs such as WIC and SNAP are at risk. In Georgia, over 190,000 people benefit from WIC, putting families who rely on funding for food and baby formula at substantial risk. Additionally, more than 1 million residents in the state receive some form of federal funding from SNAP. “This is also children and elderly—to the tune of 1.4 million Georgians getting financial support to put food on their tables. This goes beyond someone losing a paycheck because they’ve been furloughed. This is a real economic security issue for families across the country, and certainly right here in Georgia when the government stops doing its job,” Fox said. Although SNAP and WIC have some contingency funds in place, if those funds are exhausted during the shutdown, millions of families could be negatively impacted.

As of Wednesday, Oct. 8, the United States Senate had no scheduled votes. A potential vote could occur on Friday, but no decision has been made yet.

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