The state of the economy, SNAP benefits post-shutdown
SOUTH BEND, Ind.--ABC57's Jordan Tolbert breaks down the economic impact, SNAP benefits, and tariff dividend payments post government shutdown.
Economic Impact
ABC News reports $11 billion of inflation-adjusted GDP was permanently lost in the government shutdown, according to a forecast from the Congressional Budget Office last month.
ABC57’s Jordan Tolbert spoke to Jeffrey Campbell, Ph.D, Frances D. Rasmus and Jerome A. Castellini Professor of Economics at Notre Dame. He says the economic impacts from the shutdown are very small.
Campbell says most government employees, like air traffic controllers or the military, could tap credit markets or take out loans against future payments as long as they were working. He says their spending didn’t really fall, and they can repay those loans with the back pay they get from working during the shutdown.
“The way we do accounting in the United States would have accounted for a reduction of GDP —gross domestic product—by about one-tenth of 1 percent per week of the shutdown, but that's pure accounting. It's actually an accounting figment. Because the work was getting done, but we only account that the work is done when the worker gets paid. Since we weren't paying our government workers, our accounting principles say that the work never got done. That's obviously an error,” said Campbell.
Campbell says that it won't impact bottom-line accounting numbers because federal workers got paid quickly.
He says the most substantial impact of the shutdown was the suspension of SNAP benefits.
“The most substantial economic impact came from the suspension of SNAP benefits, where we failed to properly feed our fellow Americans and those that will have lasting impacts on their physical development, especially the children,” said Campbell.
SNAP Benefits
A spokesperson from the Indiana FSSA told ABC57’s Jordan Tolbert today that they are still figuring out when ‘full benefits will hit the cards’ but did note that partial benefits have been distributed.
MariJo Martinec, Executive Director and CEO at the Food Bank of Northern Indiana, said earlier this month, when SNAP benefits go away, people turn to food pantries or food banks. ABC57 spoke to Martinec again now that the government is back open.
“We have a lot of unknowns regarding the allocation of SNAP benefits. So in Indiana, benefits begin for certain letters of the alphabet beginning on the fifth of each month, and then it's staggered until the 23rd so hopefully, I know as of a few days ago, people were getting partial benefits, but now that the government has reopened, hopefully people will begin to get their full benefits,” said Martinec.
Martinec says this month, they had one of the largest numbers of people coming through the food pantry.
“Historically, the largest distribution in one day we did was March 25, 2020, the first day Indiana shut down during COVID, and we saw 446 households. On November 5 of this year, 2025, we saw 421 households. So, this is early November, the second-largest one-day number of households we moved through this pantry on site here at the Food Bank of Northern Indiana,” said Martinec.
She says the need for food continues, an increase she’s noticed each year since 2021.
“So, we're up. [In] our six-county service area, January through October, ‘24 to ‘25, we've seen a 6 percent increase. Here in St Joseph County, [the] largest county, in our six counties, we've seen a 13 percent increase,” said Martinec. “So the need continues to be there. It just wasn't in the forefront as it has been in the past 43.”
Here’s a link to find out more about ‘Turkey on the Table’ distributions and the Food Bank of Northern Indiana.
Tariff Dividend payments
Professor of Economics at Notre Dame, Jeffrey Campbell, also explains the ‘Tariff Dividend’ recently proposed by President Trump. The president said over the weekend that every American would receive a $2,000 dividend from tariff revenue, not including those who are ‘high income’.
On Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the White House is committed to making that happen.
“We are currently exploring all legal options to get that done. I don't have a timeline for you or any further details, but we can confirm for you he wants to make it happen, and so his team of economic advisors are looking into it, and when we have an update, we’ll provide one,” said Leavitt.
Campbell, professor of Economics at Notre Dame, explains why this is a unique move.
“What makes this unique is that the checks are going out not as an attempt to lift the economy out of a recession, but rather frankly, more as a probably smart political move to pull Americans behind the current president's economic policies,” said Campbell.
He says this kind of payment is sometimes used to stimulate the economy when it's weak, but he says we’re in good shape.
“Sometimes these things get used as a means of stimulating the economy. When it's weak, I don't see any particular weakness to stimulate from. So, we are in very good shape. I've said before that for us to go into a recession in the next six months, it takes one unlikely event piled on top of another unlikely event. So, I don't see this as countering any recessionary trend,” said Campbell.
He says the ‘tariff dividend’ title doesn’t have to do with the economic reality of the payments.
“By labeling it the tariff dividend, he is trying something that pleases everybody— that is— getting money to one of his favorite programs, the tariffs. However, there's nothing real in economics that makes these tied to the tariffs. That's just rhetoric,” said Campbell.
Additionally, Campbell says if he were running the disbursement of these funds, he would use the same infrastructure for dispersing stimulus checks that has been in place for a long time.