This also needs context. More people are harmed by a federal government shutdown than federal employees. Native American communities, in particular, are immediately adversely affected. As the shutdown continues, the harms expand and multiply throughout the country’s population.
There are businesses that rely on the federal government as a customer—contractors of all sorts and sizes—and as a landlord—e.g. vendors at national parks. People who own and work for those businesses are harmed by the interruption of their income.
Scientists missing their grant funds, journalists who can’t access public records, inventors who can’t get their patents, entrepreneurs who can’t get business licenses ... This bit of context is, in all likelihood, barely scratching the surface of harms flowing from the shutdown.
The weird thing about calling this exercise fact checking, rather than analysis, is it makes the publication unusually prickly about fixing something wrong. The NYT has just declared a factual limit to the people harmed by the shutdown and it will be extra embarrassing to amend.
The NYT owes Chuck Schumer an apology.
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