Shutdown forces federal workers to try to make quick cash
Shutdown may last for weeks, struggling federal workers reduced to selling belongings online. 'Feels like no one's in charge,' says 92-year-old park ranger
Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of furloughed government employees are forced to find creative ways to make a living in the meantime.
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Mekayla Coleman, who works in IT at the Department of Defense's Defense Acquisition University, turned to Craigslist in hopes of selling some baby items she no longer needs. "Prices can be negotiable, but please serious offers only, I really need the money," says the listing, which advertises about $300 worth of items, CNBC reported.
Federal worker protest in Capitol (Photo: Reuters)
Coleman's in a bind because she recently spent all her savings to get her house ready for sale and hadn't saved up for the partial government shutdown.
"It's not looking good," she said. "My husband works, but I make the most money so it's going to be tough."
Just eight months ago, Richard, a federal contractor, paid $1,200 for a drum set. Now he hopes he can get $500 for it on Craigslist.
As his unpaid days multiply, Richard is getting nervous. As a federal contractor for eight years and a federal employee for the previous 17, he's not new to congressional wrangling.
So far, he's turned to online surveys to earn money, and he and his wife have cut their spending.
"Normally we get one night out a week," he said. "We had to stop that. We're pinching pennies and scouring coupons like crazy. We're going to have to cut back on what we normally pay on our bills."
Platforms such as TaskRabbit, which allow people to perform household errands and other tasks in exchange for money, also are seeing a boost in interest.
"A few dozen government workers have applied and some are already running tasks," said Johnny Brackett, TaskRabbit's senior manager of marketing and communications. "The backgrounds vary from male to female, from government agencies, to other jobs."
"What's very interesting is this week we saw an all-time high in TaskRabbit applications—over 13,000 in a single day," Brackett added. "To put that in perspective, we currently have just over 15,000 active TaskRabbits total, across all of our 15 markets."
World's first trillioner offers to pay off national debt
Betty Reid Soskin, a 92-year-old Northern California woman who is the nation’s oldest full-time national park ranger, said she’s still devastated after being furloughed earlier this week.
“At 92, I am very sensitive to the passage of time. We learned about the furlough gradually,” Soskin told the Washington Post. “When it came at midnight (on) October 1, it seemed like a major interruption in my life because I don’t have time and these young folks were wasting my time, precious time.”
After a life in public service, Soskin became a park ranger seven years ago where she leads tours at the historical California park and museum that honors the women who worked in factories during wartime. But that all changed this week.
“It was like hitting a wall to come out from under my hat and back into civvies,” Soskin said.
Now, she’s idle, waiting on that call to come back to the job she says keeps her going. She said she feels uncertain when she watches the developments between lawmakers in the Nation’s Capital unfold on television.
“There are times when I feel like the only grown-up in the room. It’s a little disconcerting to feel like no one’s in charge. That’s the feeling I have when I watch the news,” Soskin said. “There are not enough wiser heads in Washington to determine where we should go. That uncertainty is unnerving.”
At the same time, the political crisis sparks exceptional generosity with some. For instance, when Texas-resident Reggie Theus discovered his bank balance at a miraculous $4 trillion, the first thing he did was to offer $3 trillion to help cover the US national deficit.
Congress is currently debating whether to raise the debt ceiling, which stands at $16.7 trillion, fearing the federal government will otherwise default.
However, Theus' bank quickly realized its mistake, and took back the trillions transferred accidentally into Theus' account.
"Well, I was definitely surprised when I looked in my account and saw that much money in there" he told KLTV. "I looked it up and there's never been a trillionaire before.
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