On the first day of every month, Ethel Ingram goes to the grocery store with $171 in federally funded food stamps and a nearly impossible mission: Buy enough food for the next 30 days. She usually fails. A couple of weeks into most months, she’s forced to pursue another goal: visiting enough food banks to stock her refrigerator until the month ends and her account reloads. But this month, the government shutdown cut off food assistance to her and millions of others. Now Ingram’s options to feed herself are dwindling. Her account balance remains zero, and the food banks she relies on are more crowded than she has ever seen them.

This is what happens when a record-long government shutdown affects millions of Americans who are already struggling with the high cost of food, housing, child car

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