Could the government shutdown tip the US into a recession?

The U.S. economy remains largely unscathed by the government shutdown , but the nation could risk economic peril if the impasse deepens into a long-term standoff, some economists told ABC News.

Roughly 750,000 furloughed government workers already feel crimped by the shutdown as they suffer missed paychecks and strained budgets. Those direct effects will grow dramatically on Nov. 1, when millions of low-income Americans are set to lose access to critical food assistance.

A prolonged shutdown lasting several months or longer may force furloughed employees to exhaust savings, while sapping wider consumer strength as a swathe of people go without key government support, economists said. The absence of gold-standard economic data typically issued by the federal government could also