US govt. shutdown cost up to $6 billion

The federal government shutdown that lasted for 16 days last month is expected to cost the US economy between $2 billion and $6 billion in economic output, according to a report by the Office of Management and Budget released Thursday afternoon.

Those figures, culled from independent forecasters, may be a conservative estimate, the authors note. They found that approximately 120,000 fewer private sector jobs were created during the first two weeks of October because of the dual threats of the shutdown and the standoff over the debt ceiling.

Forecasters additionally expect fourth quarter real GDP growth to be 0.2 to 0.6 percent lower than what it could have been had the shutdown and debt ceiling fight not taken place.

The report provides the most detailed insight to date into how much damage the shutdown caused. Among the notable findings are the fact that federal employees were furloughed during the shutdown for a combined total of 6.6 million days, and they received $2.0 billion in back pay for work that they never performed.

The country’s national parks lost roughly $500 million in visitor spending nationwide, while almost $4 billion in tax refunds were delayed because the Internal Revenue Service was shuttered.

A wide range of government programs were affected as well. According to the OMB, “hundreds of patients” were prevented from enrolling in clinical trials at the National Institutes of Health; nearly 6,300 children lost access to Head Start, before private philanthropists stepped in to reopen classrooms; and the Food and Drug Administration delayed “nearly 500 food and feed domestic inspections and roughly 355 food safety inspections under State contracts.” The Huffington Post

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