As the government shutdown is set to become the longest in U.S. history, Pennsylvania organizations that rely on government support are experiencing an unusual and devastating double whammy.
That’s because the state is in the midst of its own budget impasse. The Republican-controlled Senate and the Democratic House have been in a deadlock over the 2025-26 budget for more than 120 days, freezing billions in state funding.
The consequences of the dual shutdowns are becoming dire for organizations like the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence (PCADV), a nonprofit that helps victims of domestic violence find safety, counseling and legal advocacy through a network of 59 community-based domestic violence programs across the state.
PCADV receives 53% of its budget from federal funds and 43% from the state, and it operates on a reimbursement basis. Since the state budget impasse began, it is owed more than $11 million for services already provided, according to CEO Susan Higginbotham.
“It’s a perfect storm,” she said in an interview with NBC News. “This spells disaster for nonprofit programs providing services to people because, first of all, a number of programs are having to lay off staff or furlough staff, or think about how they can reduce the experience. I mean, you know, this is impossible to manage, really.”
We’d like to hear from you about how you’re experiencing the government shutdown, whether you’re a federal employee who can’t work right now, a person who relies on federal benefits like SNAP, or someone who is feeling the effects of other shuttered services in your everyday life. Please contact us at [email protected] or reach out to us here.
Higginbotham warned that if the dual impasses continue, PCADV’s statewide network of programs, which provide services for approximately 90,000 domestic violence survivors and their children, may have to begin laying off staff or permanently close their doors.
“If that happens, it’s not going to help to blame ‘Rs’ or ‘Ds’ for it, or for them to blame each other. It’s too late at that point. We just want them to pass a budget. Figure it out,” she said.
Daniel Mallinson, a political scientist at Penn State University, said that the Pennsylvania budget impasse could end when enough people apply pressure on their lawmakers to find a solution. However, he added, those most negatively affected by the compounding shutdown consequences are marginalized people who “don’t have as much political sway.”
“A lot of the people that have the most political sway are more in that category of ‘it doesn’t really impact me right now,’” Mallinson said, while “it’s a daily reality” for marginalized groups that depend on government-funded services.
Among the hardest hit are students, as schools across the commonwealth wait on $5.3 billion in missed state funding, according to Chris Lilienthal, a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania State Education Association.
Pennsylvania schools have had to suspend afterschool programs, implement spending freezes, and at least three school districts have said that they are on the brink of closing down entirely, Lilienthal said.
Lilienthal explained that districts that rely more heavily on government funding are “in a much worse situation” than schools with wealthier tax bases and more local revenue.
This coincides with the suspension of federal SNAP nutrition benefits, which serve nearly 2 million Pennsylvanians, including 713,000 children, according to a report released by Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration.
“The loss of these SNAP benefits, it is just making it that much harder for kids in the classroom,” Lilienthal said. “Of all the impacts of the federal shutdown, this is the one that has driven the most calls to our union, the most concerns from our members. What’s going to happen to the kids if they don’t have access to these SNAP nutrition benefits?”
President Donald Trump’s administration said this week that it would use contingency funds to pay out partial SNAP benefits for November following a judge’s order. But that could take “several weeks,” the Agriculture Department said.
In Washington, after weeks without any movement, senators predicted Monday that bipartisan talks among rank-and-file members could mean an end to the shutdown as soon as this week.
There are the first glimpses of progress in Pennsylvania, too, as Shapiro and leaders from the state House and Senate met in person several times last week, Spotlight PA reported.
