SOUNDBITE Thea Price, former U.S. Institute of Peace Employee:

“This is the first time I've actually ever been on public assistance in my adult life,, and we held out pretty much as long as we possibly could. We used our savings, we used family... some credit cards. We basically were trying to get by."

AFTER WORKING ALMOST NINE YEARS AT HER DREAM JOB AT THE INSTITUTE OF PEACE, THEA PRICE WAS FIRED IN MARCH 2025 AS PART OF A WAVE OF LAYOFFS MEANT TO SHRINK THE SIZE OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.

FROM THERE THINGS CONTINUED TO GET WORSE.

HER HUSBAND LOST HIS JOB AS A GOVERNMENT CONTRACTOR AND NOW THE LONGEST-EVER FEDERAL SHUTDOWN HAS PAUSED FOOD ASSISTANCE FUNDING THAT FAMILIES LIKE HER’S RELY ON.

SOUNDBITE Thea Price, former U.S. Institute of Peace Employee:

“We have all I've been working since I was 15 years old. Right? For decades, I've been paying into a system. And then to have those services that for the first time that I actually need them to then be halted or denied, arbitrarily, feels like an additional hit on top of one thing after the other after the other. That's making pretty much life impossible… It’s not just losing your job. It's like losing the benefits or making the benefits more difficult. It's restarting student loan payments... It's food prices. It's rent. It's childcare. It's like all of these things sort of compounding... It's never been this bad. It's never been this difficult.”

DURING THE SHUTDOWN, THE CAPITAL AREA FOOD BANK IS PROVIDING ADDITIONAL FOOD DISTRIBUTIONS TO FEDERAL EMPLOYEES AND CONTRACTORS WHO HAVE BEEN FURLOUGHED OR ARE WORKING WITHOUT PAY.

SOUNDBITE Radha Muthiah, Capital Food Bank CEO:

“We started the year anticipating providing about 50 million meals of food, to our community. And it looks like we will have to increase that by at least 20% and provide about 60 million meals into our community.”

SOUNDBITE Eric Jones, 3rd generation federal worker:

“The line this morning, the cars were going almost half a mile down the road... This isn't something I'm happy about doing. And I didn't really want to, but considering that the future is pretty unpredictable, and because I have gone without a couple of paychecks, I decided to come here and take advantage of this really generous opportunity."

CONSIDERING THE TOUGH JOB MARKET AND THE HIGH COST OF LIVING, PRICE’S FAMILY WILL BE MOVING AWAY FROM THE D.C. REGION BACK TO HER HOMETOWN NEAR SEATTLE, WASHINGTON.

SOUNDBITE Thea Price, former U.S. Institute of Peace Employee:

“It's devastating for me to feel like I failed to feel like I have to start over…I already did this in my 20s… and I waited to have a family till I was on solid ground. And just to have it all fall apart is just there's really no words.”