On Thursday, Oct. 30, there were some signs that a judge may keep food and nutrition money going to recipients along with the Women, Infants and Children program (WIC), but even if that happens, the ongoing federal shutdown has a lot of implications for Guilford County government and county leaders have posted some information that they want residents to be aware of.
The federal government shutdown that began at the start of this month doesn’t seem to show many signs of ending and it’s starting to cause real trouble. That’s why Guilford County officials are putting out the information meant to help residents understand what’s happening as well as what it will mean for local services and benefits. County leaders say they want to make sure people know what to expect, know where they can get help, and know which county offices and programs are continuing to operate normally as the shutdown approaches the one-month mark.
According to the official statement and answers to frequently asked questions posted on Guilford County’s website, the federal shutdown happened because Congress failed to pass funding bills or a continuing resolution to keep federal spending authorized. In the absence of that authorization, a lot of agencies are being forced to suspend non-essential operations and furlough employees.
While, unlike the federal government, state and local governments remain open, some of the federal programs that run through the county are beginning to be affected, so county officials are keeping a very close – hourly – watch on the news and events.
The county’s statement explains that the county’s leadership team and Health and Human Services Business Operations staff are monitoring the situation and reviewing all federally funded programs in order to identify any local impacts. They’re also now in constant contact with community-based organizations so as to understand what capacity exists there if families or individuals need extra support.
Thankfully, the main message, for now, is that most Guilford County services will continue as usual; however, as has been widely reported, residents who rely on federal nutrition or income-based benefits programs might not be able to access food after the first of the month.
Guilford County noted in its post that its core operations aren’t directly funded by federal appropriations – which means that things like the Tax Department, the Register of Deeds office, the Sheriff’s Office and the courts should continue operating normally.
However, some social-service programs administered by the county rely heavily on federal funds. Two major ones are the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known in North Carolina as Food and Nutrition Services and previously known as “food stamps” – and the WIC program.
According to county officials, those programs are where residents may start to see effects if the shutdown drags on.
The United States Department of Agriculture, which funds both SNAP and WIC, has ordered a pause on all November SNAP benefits until further notice. Unless the USDA lifts that suspension soon or there’s an intervention by the courts, no new benefits will be issued for November.
The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services has said it stands ready to resume those payments immediately if the USDA gives the green light; however, at this point, recipients are being told to plan ahead and manage existing benefits carefully. County social services officials emphasized that any benefits already issued and currently on an EBT card remain valid and available for use. Those benefits don’t expire or disappear because of the shutdown.
The county’s statement also reminded residents that they can still apply for SNAP benefits even while the federal government is closed. The Guilford County Division of Social Services offices remain open and are accepting applications in person, by mail, and online at epass.nc.gov. County officials are urging households that are struggling to go ahead and apply now rather than waiting until after the shutdown ends.
Anyone in need of additional food assistance can also call 2-1-1 or visit nc211.org to be connected with local pantries and food programs.
The Greater Guilford Food Finder app and website can also be used to locate available resources.
For those enrolled in WIC, benefits are currently available but may not be guaranteed later in November if the shutdown continues. County and state officials are working with the USDA to determine how long existing funds can sustain the program. Families enrolled in WIC are encouraged to look out for updates from NC DHHS and are being told to pick up their current food benefits as soon as possible.
Social Security, SSI, Medicare, Medicaid and veterans benefits aren’t expected to be interrupted.
The county noted that customer service may be slower, with longer telephone hold times, but payments and medical coverage will continue as usual.
In addition, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has confirmed that Medicaid funding for North Carolina is already in place through the end of 2025 – so local Medicaid operations are unaffected for now.
Adult day care and in-home aid services are also continuing as usual throughout the shutdown.
County officials stated that residents can still get passports at the Guilford County Register of Deeds office. The local acceptance facility remains open, though processing times through the US Department of State could take longer due to the federal shutdown.
Therefore, those people planning international travel in the next few months are being advised to apply early.
Farmers and others in the agriculture sector have been told that the USDA’s Greensboro Service Center office in the county agriculture building is closed. However, local technical support is still available through the NC Cooperative Extension and Soil and Water offices, which remain open and staffed. Residents can contact Sonni Dudley at 336-641-2401 or smdudley@ncsu.edu for Cooperative Extension services, or Fed Cox at 336-641-2251 or fcox@guilfordcountync.gov for Soil and Water assistance.
Both of those offices are located at 3309 Burlington Road in Greensboro.
Guilford County officials are advising residents who rely on federal programs to budget conservatively, make sure they’ve used any existing benefits and be ready to seek local help if necessary. The statement says Guilford County will continue updating its website as new information becomes available from the state and federal government.
More details and regular updates can be found on the Federal Government Shutdown Information and Resources page at guilfordcountync.gov.
And the chaos begins in 3…2…1…
the nada by nada guvmnt
Just think, all of this is because Republicans are fighting hard to increase health insurance premiums for millions of Americans. Conservatives should be so proud.
Nope. Rather than vote to keep the government open, all democrats voted to keep it closed. The proposed bill was to continue spending at current levels so the govt could stay open. Under Biden, enough repubs voted along with dems to continue the current spending so the govt wouldn’t shut down. But with the Orange Man in office, the Dems are happy to see average citizens suffer by closing the government. btw: the ACA subsidies the Dems are trying to maintain are the EXTRA subsidies given during covid to those solidly middle and upper middle class enrollees. Because the Dems pushes that through using “consolidation”, they didn’t need 60 votes. But, under the rules, that provision was limited to the years 2022 to 2025. I am a tax advisor. I’ve seen clients making over $200K getting some subsidies they didn’t need from Uncle Sam because of this provision. The Dems wanted to make the give-aways permanent and were willing to shut down the government thinking it would force the Repubs hands. It has backfired. The Dems passed this handout to the well off knowing it would have to be addressed before the end of 2025. They created the problem and now are pretending it is the Repub’s fault. The dems are refusing what the Repubs did under Biden: Pass a continuing resolution to keep the govt open and then go back to negotiating a resolution like reasonable-minded politicians do. But no, the Dems are throwing a tantrum and don’t care if Americans suffer.
Thanks for your insight, Ken. It’s refreshing to learn the truth instead of being subjected to the non-stop lies of Chris.
More hollow accusations from a conservative. They could never prove mass fraud in the election system and Al can’t not provide any proof or example of me lying.
Yawn
Seek help.
Most recent obvious lie : The US education system is “deeply underfunded”.
I gave deep set of metrics on NC education system being underfunded. Happy to repeat them.
Republicans have a proven track record of opening going back against their word. Take their deny Obama the ability to appoint a SCOTUS judge at end of his term with claim that lame duck president should be allowed to appoint such a judge. YET they did so when they pushed through an appointment to SCOTUS when Trump as a lame duck. So who would ever take the word of a Republican to have any meaning.
Biden actually sat down and negotiated terms and gave up on a few issues to win the votes from republicans in order to keep the Government fully funded. Here is a quote from Biden that you will never hear from Trump “Mr. Biden said in a statement. “This agreement represents a compromise, which means neither side got everything it wanted…..” This was from the 2024 stop funding bill. Compromise is critical for our democracy to work. A real leader would know that…..Trump is not a real leader. He is just a really good con man with few if any morals.
The history of the bill you state is accurate, but you leave out that it was always desired to be permeant by democrats, but they negotiated to kick the can down the road in order to have the broader bill approved….). Regardless of the history, the loss of the subsidies is a significant increase in health insurance cost for millions of Americans who are still struggling financials due to economic issues., such as cost o housing, increased grocery prices, slowing job market, I strongly support maintaining the subsidies for those that are struggling financially….conservatives are choosing to make Americans suffer to they can make millions of Americans struggle financially to access healthcare.
End of the day, the failure to even negotiate at all falls on republicans. Period. Weak leaders lead to suffering Americans. I blame Trump.
Best wishes
End
Just showing your ignorance again, Chris.
During the Biden Administration, Democrats “expanded” Obamacare subsidies under an “emergency” and “temporary” basis for COVID. The pandemic is gone.
The pandemic is gone but the economic impacts on the working class are not. Unless you are making the case that people have dramatically increased the disposable income in the last 10 months?
How ever you look at it…..allowing these subsides to expire will dramatically increase the premiums paid by people who rely on coverage from the ACA program. Given the state of the economy on the working class it is heartless to push people off of insurance when they are still struggling in this economy.
My personal perspective is that big business ran up prices to maintain profitability during the covid crisis and never brought them back down once supply chains were restored and demand returned to pre-covid levels so leaving most working-class Americans still struggling with cost of living since wages never spiked to cover the increase cost of living (inflation). THIS is what killed democrats in the 2024 election when they kept pointing to macro-economic trends saying everything was great when the impact for working class Americans had nowhere near recovered. No with Trumps tariffs push prices again, it is still way too soon to cancel the subsidies.
At least if conservatives push this agenda, it will help elect democrats in the mid-terms like it helped elect Trump in 2024 elections.
Happy to share facts, data and sources that I base my perspective on if interested. Or you can just call me childish names and say ‘nah uh’ as you typically do.
Best wishes.
The healthcare subsidies do not run out until the end of 2025. Yes, people are looking to enroll or re-enroll in health plans for next year. So it’s Democrats in the Senate who are holding up restarting the government. As for the ACA being called affordable. My husband works in the Health insurance business and has always called it the UnAffordable Care Act…because it is not sustainable. It costs more than it needs to cost citizens and taxpayers. We refused to participate in it and found other ways to Afford healthcare which cost us a whole lot less and still received the healthcare needed!
So your suggestion is to cancel ACA and make cost of health insurance even MORE expensive? Or are you suggesting that poor working-class people shouldn’t be allowed to have access to healthcare? Or are you just complaining but lack any thinking on how to offer affordable healthcare access for working-class people not covered by employer plans? Democrats have plenty of suggestions. What are conservatives suggesting other than complaints and criticism?
You are not allowed to claim health insurance is expensive and want to cancel ACA without offering another solution. Hence conservatives have never been able to cancel ACA and replace as they promised in two weeks……7 years ago.
Best wishes
“You are not allowed to claim health insurance is expensive… without offering another solution”… Who the HELL do you think you are, buddy? The Moderator of these columns?
Let me tell you something a**hole. You’re a quarrelsome argumentative blowhard who everyone effing hates. You’re full of [deleted], you twist our words, you lie (and refuse to admit it), you distort, deflect and digress rather than addressing the issue, and you then have the nerve to condescend to us as if you are superior.
You’re a prick. An arrogant, overbearing, supercilious prick.
Everything Obama told us about Obamacare was a complete lie. If you disagree, bring me the receipts.
He certainly told some lies to get ACA past such as ‘you get to keep your doctor’….
BUT he didn’t lie about lower cost premiums for working-class people without access to employer sponsored plans. He didn’t lie about removing of ‘pre-existing condition clauses’. He didn’t lie about free preventive care under all plans. He didn’t lie about the elimination of lifetime limits. He didn’t lie about extended coverage for dependents. And he didn’t lie about extended coverage.
None of those existing under prior offerings from profit-based insurance plans that only worried about reducing risk for insurance companies by NOT fully covering health risks for working-class Americans not covered under employer-based insurance.
While I was upset over the lies,, I was NOT upset about the truths the plan offered and personally benefited from them over the periods in my life where I wasn’t covered by my employer sponsored plans.
Best wishes
Thank you for your reply. I hadn’t thought about those benefits in the way you addressed them. It’s given me food for thought. And I appreciate that you are able to engage in constructive conversation, even in the face of nasty personal attack. Thank you for sharing “the other side’s perspective”.
I maintain the expanded subsidies were just another Covid era rush to give away money. And like many of these programs, it was just the working class who benefitted. There was a lot of money put out in those years with no real assessment of their effect or appropriateness. Your side wants to continue them or make them permanent. But I would say we need to take a real look at these payments before extending them. That would be the prudent thing to do. But the Dems can’t be bothered to keep the govt open while studying and negotiating the expanded payments. They are fine with closing the government. It is a shame they are willing to hurt citizens instead of doing their job of negotiating and making a case before the people of this Covid era give away. I guess the Repubs could have done the same when Biden was in charge. Just refuse to pass a continuing resolution unless the Dems agreed to something like, I don’t know, cutting Medicare? Giving ultimatums the other side will never accept is no way to govern.
So what would you say to the millions of Americans facing significant premium increases that are already struggling with increased cost of housing, groceries, childcare, etc….
I strongly agree that giving ultimatums is no way to govern. Weird because it is the Democrats who have showed up ready to work out a solution yet the republicans have yet to offering any discussions other than ‘take it or leave it’.
Best wishes
Chris if the economy is so bad why are so many people still going places. Airlines are reporting record numbers traveling last week. What’s up with that. Looking for your perspective for a friend.
A widening spending gap means higher-income households are spending more on travel, while lower- and middle-income consumers are more cautious due to inflation on necessities.
You are making the same mistake that Biden and Harris made when they said the economy was back to normal when it was only really back to ‘normal’ for higher income families. The average family was struggling with impact of inflation and other covid impacts. The same is very true today under Trump’s economic policies that have ignored the housing crisis, driven up cost of groceries even more and stalled the job market growth and wage growth at the lower income bands.
Hope that helps. Best wishes
“At least if conservatives push this agenda, it will help elect democrats in the mid-terms like it helped elect Trump in 2024 elections.”
Yeah, right. Democrap approval ratings are at an all time low, and Trump’s ratings have gone up during the shutdown.
Democrats need to stop pandering to their illegal alien voter base by giving them free healthcare, what all this is really about. They are actively crapping on the heads of every American citizen.
This is what we voted for.
Yep salt life. Along with another fact that the Democrats wanted to add another $1.5t or so to the budget and then started their games which is screwing numerous citizens. But some how that is Trumps fault. Go figure. Even CNN is laughing at the Democrats.
So, restore taxes for the upper income bands given that tax cuts by conservatives have added 3.4 trillion or so to the deficit. Net gain in fiscal responsibility. Remember when THAT used to be a conservative mantra until Reagan killed it.
If you don’t like the ACA, come up with a better plan. Conservatives promised us that 7 years ago and failed. Why? Because they prefer the tax breaks that mostly benefit themselves and the wealthy donors.
hasn’t hit my home . 10.5% voter turnout proves that 89.5% are satisfied with the status quo. what % of these 10.5% are employed or substantial suppliers to any guvmnt entity – now add in the ‘non-profiting’ salaried. i bet that 80% of these voters see significant $ every month from UNCLE SUGAR
10.5% turnout in an off-year primary means a lot of people just don’t see the need to vote. I am an independent lean conservative but more a libertarian. I did vote. But GSO is just a blue city. Very few conservatives get elected. I can see why people stay home. You can look at current elected leaders and almost predict within 90% who will get elected. I am NOT happy with the current leadership but I understand my preferred candidates aren’t going to get elected. Often, they don’t bother to run.
i big entrenched invisible machine creates the candidates with final pick by media
Correct, mark.
Last time I looked food lion had plenty of food. Just go in with your 10 kids and buy all you want. Then go home and open a large bag of chips and watch the view all day.
So why do we have “non-essential” services? We pay for stuff that is not necessary? Hudathunkit?
Now is a good time to determine how many illegals are receiving benefits and how many others who are receiving benefits but do not qualify.
Also Termlimits how many are receiving benefits when they are perfectly capable of working and taking care of themselves. The government makes it too easy to receive benefits
Too true. I recall a story told by someone’s whose occupation required meeting with homeowners and such in their homes. More likely than not, the disabled person was overweight, if not obese, and their daily activity was sitting in a recliner watching TV. Government has all but destroyed shame in America. When 10% of the population receives SNAP benefits, there is something rotten in America. Receivers of SS disability have gotten younger. Why? Statistically, that doesn’t make sense.
This is true and definitely needs to be addressed. But it will do no good to withhold approved benefits from those who have become accustomed to them because of “government shutdown”. How absurd.
Address the problem of making it too easy to get benefits! Set healthy guidelines that help just those who really need it. Make them temporary, drug-free, a plan for entering the workforce, etc… The reason that so many don’t really care that they are being withheld is because everyone knows the system isn’t right or fair.
My heart goes out to those that truly do need actual help, not a handout.
Excuse me? Who is withholding benefits other than Democrats who want to use more taxpayer money for votes?
You’re right Aussie. Milton Friedman put it well when he said “The market works very well. The more money you pay for something, the more of it you will get”. So as government pays out money for “disability”, so it gets more “disability”. The market will supply the demand.
You have been conned if you think illegals the issues with spending in this country. Typical tactic to create a fake enemy to drive fear, hate and division for political gain. Illegals provide billions in net economic gain to the US annually.
https://americansfortaxfairness.org/undocumented-immigrants-contribute-economy/#:~:text=Report-,How%20Undocumented%20Immigrants%20Contribute%20to%20Our%20Economy%20&%20Pay%20Higher,Rates%20Than%20Many%20Major%20Corporations&text=In%202022%20America's%2010.9%20million,employers%20and%20employees%20would%20increase.
Best wishes.
Democrats are masters at tactics to create fake enemies to drive fear, hate and division for political gain. https://www.ncdp.org/people/
So….you send a link that shows how democrats value diversity and think that creates fear and hate? Weird.
Here is a good source on conservatives and why their use of fear and hate drives the Republican messaging: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mind-in-the-machine/201612/fear-and-anxiety-drive-conservatives-political-attitudes