Washington, DC
As a prison worker in Florida put it, ‘Trump’s not hurting the right people’
Washington is supposed to be recession-proof: when times are bad, the government just hires more. But the city isn’t shutdown-proof. There are more than 360,000 federal employees in the DC area, and many are among the 800,000 across America who last week received a salary bank transfer that said zero dollars and zero cents.
A number of foodbanks have opened here, offering free meals to anyone with federal identification. Whole Foods, the upmarket supermarket, has gone a step further. It is serving spaghetti dinners to anyone who is hungry. Not everyone I met at this ‘community gathering’ was a federal worker, though they all communed in a spirit of anti–presidential solidarity. I saw a large woman helping herself to a big plate of free food, and asked if she were a federal employee. ‘No,’ she replied crossly.
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