COLUMBUS, Ohio – The federal government’s shutdown is being felt across Ohio as thousands of workers face life without paychecks.
More than four dozen Defense Supply Center-Columbus employees were furloughed yesterday, with hundreds more facing layoffs later this month.
The shutdown will hit southwest Ohio’s Miami Valley harder than many other parts of the country. “Forbes” ranks the Dayton metropolitan area fifth among cities facing the worst effects of the budget impasse in Congress, with 10 percent of the region’s wages coming from federal employees. Some 8,700 civilian employees at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton were put on unpaid leave, for what the base estimates as a loss of $5 million a day in salaries.
At least 10,500 employees of either the Ohio National Guard or the state’s largest military installation were idled Tuesday by the partial federal government shutdown, with more cutbacks in federal agency and related offices.
Nationwide, about 800,000 federal employees were sent home — a number greater than the combined U.S. workforces of Target, General Motors, Exxon and Google.
The budget impasse is also forcing the shutdown of the Wayne National Forest, though officials say Ohio’s state parks are open. The National Museum of the U.S. Air Force closed Tuesday, as did the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.