This article, written by Justin Lahart and Konrad Putzier, originally appeared in The Wall Street Journal on November 11, 2025.

The longest government shutdown on record has taken a bite from the economy. But the roiling effects of the closure, as well as the data disruptions it brought on, are likely to make it hard to know just how big that bite was.

With each passing day, the now six-week shutdown’s drag on the economy has become more apparent. Thousands of furloughed government workers haven’t been paid, and have reduced their spending as a result. Delayed payments under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, led many people to further tighten their belts. Flight delays and cancellations added to the headaches.

The shutdown also added to economic uncertainty, and further soured Americans’ views of the economy. Last Friday, the University of Michigan reported that 71% of people it polled this month expect higher unemployment over the next year—the most since 1980.

​Experience suggests that ​the economy will make back most of any lost ground when the government reopens. That could be as early as this week as the result of a decision by eight members of the Senate Democratic caucus to side with Republicans to advance a bill to end the government shutdown. Crucially, the agreement stipulates that furloughed government workers receive back pay, which will refill their coffers and allow for some catch-up spending.

​Still, economists and policymakers will face​ a challenge in the coming weeks: determining just how much any recent economic damage was a temporary shutdown effect, or a sign of bigger problems. Before the shutdown began on Oct. 1, evidence was mounting that the job market had slowed markedly, and that lower- and middle-income consumers were spending more cautiously.

“It’s not as if you had a shutdown in an environment where people were comfortable saying the next six months was going to look like the last six months,” said Robert Barbera, director of the Johns Hopkins University Center for Financial Economics.

The Congressional Budget Office calculated that if the shutdown lasts for six weeks—close to what seems likely—it will reduce annualized growth in gross domestic product in the fourth quarter by 1.5 percentage points.

The CBO used the shutdown that ended in early 2019 to guide its analysis, but estimating the effects is difficult, and other economists expect more muted effects on growth. Oxford Economics, for example, estimates the shutdown will shave about a percentage point off fourth-quarter GDP growth.

In addition to furloughed workers, the shutdown has hit low-income Americans by delaying federal food assistance. This is a group already struggling with rising costs and slowing wage growth. SNAP payments are equal to more than 6% of consumer spending on groceries and other non-restaurant food and beverages.

North Hills Community Outreach, which runs three food pantries in Pennsylvania’s Allegheny County, saw an almost 50% increase in the number of people lining up for food last week. Executive director, Scott Shaffer, said he spoke to around 30 people in line outside the organization’s Allison Park pantry last Tuesday, and around half said they were there because they didn’t receive their SNAP benefits. “I heard anger, frustration, venting,” he said.

Gregory Daco, chief economist at EY-Parthenon, estimates that around 20% of the economic hit from the shutdown will be permanent, largely because some lost spending on services such as restaurant meals won’t be recovered later.

Still, that means most of the impact eventually gets reversed. The washing machine a federal employee held off buying during the shutdown will get bought, for example. The trip that got canceled because of flight disruptions will either happen later, or the would-be vacation money will fund other purchases.

Ultimately, the CBO reckons the economy will be a bit worse off, but not in a way that would be all that noticeable. A shutdown even of this magnitude is unlikely to leave much of a mark, reducing the level of GDP in the fourth quarter of next year by $11 billion—not a lot in the context of a $30 trillion economy.

But, the nearer-term challenge is that it is harder for economists to figure out what is happening in a precarious economic moment.

If the economy softens in the fourth quarter, it will be hard to disentangle how much of the weakness is because of the shutdown, and how much might be because of other issues, such as a continued slowdown in the job market or continuing uncertainty over tariffs. And, if the economy bounces back in the first quarter of next year, it could be similarly difficult to know how much is because of a recovery from shutdown disruptions, and how much is due to enthusiasm over artificial intelligence, or boosts from tax cuts that kick in next year.

Also, even when economists finally get delayed government data, some may be incomplete. For its readings on unemployment, for example, the Labor Department relies on a monthly survey of households that in October wasn’t administered.

The economic hit in Washington, D.C., doesn’t feel temporary for small-business owners.

At the Founding Farmers Restaurant Group, which operates seven restaurants in the Washington, D.C., area, revenue is down around 15% during the shutdown compared with a year ago, said co-founder Dan Simons.

Fewer government workers are showing up for breakfast and lunch, and even people who aren’t personally affected by the shutdown are more subdued and spending less, Simons said.

Simons, who has been through shutdowns before, said the company has cut staff hours, ordered less food from suppliers, and isn’t anticipating making up the lost revenue.

After the shutdown ends, he said, “you don’t go out next Thursday night and order two hamburgers instead of one.”

 

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