WYOMING –Government shutdown. It’s nothing new. Since 1976, the feds have gone dark 21 times now—this one a partial shutdown that has had some noticeable affects across the country, but how hard has it hit Jackson?
Personal-finance website WalletHub today released its report on the States Most & Least Affected by the 2019 Government Shutdown to add some hard data to all the rhetoric.
Close to home, Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks have not experienced noticeable negative effects of the partial shutdown. Access to these parks is self-limiting in winter. Cold weather prevents the kind of visitation volume and bad behavior that has reportedly trashed other parks and caused some to simply close.
WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia in terms of five key metrics, ranging from each state’s share of federal jobs to federal contract dollars per capita to the share of families receiving food stamps.
The survey put Wyoming at 20th most affected, owing mainly to its generous amount of public lands. Much of the state is comprised of national park, national forest, and BLM lands. Pulling the Cowboy State in the opposite direction is the lack of people on food stamps—Wyoming ranked lowest in that category.
The District of Columbia was predictably the most affected by a partial government shutdown as many there make their living inside the beltway. In Minnesota, they barely notice the federal government isn’t running at 100%.
