‘It feels like I can’t stop the bleed’

As the GOP-controlled Congress keeps the government shut down rather than talk healthcare costs, workers share how Washington families are paying the price

OLYMPIA, WA (October 29, 2025) – On a normal day, Mïlo Nicholas would be checking in with community health clinics in tribal communities across Washington, reviewing patients’ charts to make sure they get the food and care they need. But normalcy evaporated on October 1, when Mïlo and their coworkers were temporarily laid off with only a few days notice. Refusing to negotiate over healthcare insurance benefits, Congressional Republicans allowed federal government funding for critical programs to lapse. Now Mïlo and hundreds of other public servants in Washington are going without paychecks, while hundreds of thousands of working families in statewide are wondering how they’ll pay their grocery bills. 

Mïlo works for the state Department of Health administering the federal Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Nutrition Program. WIC provides healthy foods, personalized nutrition education, breastfeeding support, and referrals to other services for people who are pregnant, post-partum, or have children under five. The federal government provides the funds, and states administer the program. In Washington, families have been able to get care at community-based clinics, referrals to dentists and other services, receive EBT cards to cover groceries, and use WIC funds to purchase fresh, locally grown fruits and vegetables at farmers markets. More than 200,000 Washingtonians – most of them children – are served by the program.

“WIC is the only nutrition program in the nation that has actual dietitians that create food packages with certain grains, certain vegetables, produce, things like that,” says Mïlo. “We do a little bit of everything. But it starts with nutrition and whole foods.”

Mïlo Nicholas, pictured at a rally for state employees they helped plan, is a WFSE Local 443 vice president and shop steward. Photo: Mïlo Nicholas

Extensive research has demonstrated WIC’s effectiveness. By providing healthy food, it reduces hunger, protects health, and raises school performance among the children served. By boosting sales at markets in poor neighborhoods, it even increases access to healthy food among those who don’t receive direct benefits. 

For decades, millions of families in the U.S. have relied on two federally funded programs to bridge the gap between any income they have and the actual cost of groceries: WIC and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), often referred to as food stamps.  Even before the shutdown, these programs faced cuts. The so-called “big, beautiful bill,” H.R. 1, kicks an estimated 137,000 people off food stamps in Washington alone, while reducing benefits for hundreds of thousands more.  

Unless federal funding is released by Saturday, 45 million people who depend on SNAP benefits will immediately lose support, including more than 900,000 Washingtonians. The money is there. Contingency plans to keep SNAP benefits available were posted on the USDA website until recently, when they were abruptly removed and replaced with a partisan blurb blaming the loss of benefits on Democrats. (Of course, it is Republicans, holding both houses of Congress, who wield the power to make a deal.) Those who receive monthly WIC benefits–about 6.7 million people nationwide, a number that includes more than 40% of all infants in the U.S–should still receive some assistance in the first half of November, as USDA moves funds around. But funds will cover only a fraction of the program’s services.

“The funding available is only paying for most of November [and only] for the food benefits, not to fund the clinics,” says Mïlo. “The funds were just a few bread crumbs.”

Those funds cover salaries for about ten people, who are now trying to administer WIC benefits throughout the entire state. 

“My supervisor is doing the work of six people,” said Mïlo. “And they’re on these bare bone fumes, just trying to do the bare, bare, bare, bare minimum.”

The Trump administration has announced intent to use the shutdown to hurt “Democrat” programs. But those first hurt by the lapsed funding will be families across the nation and in every region of Washington.

Rachelle Evans works at a Safeway in Newport, a town on Washington’s border with Idaho, in Pend Oreille county. Residents here voted by 68% to elect Donald Trump in 2024, and are represented in Congress by Michael Baumgartner, a Republican. In Baumgartner’s district, more than 22,000 people rely on WIC and more that 300,000 households rely on SNAP. These rates are among the highest in the state. 

Rachelle’s family once relied on WIC. “When I was a younger mom working in the grocery store, there were many months when there just wasn’t enough to pay the bills and buy food for the family so those WIC food benefits were a blessing. They helped us get by.”

“Now these food benefits have been cut by the Republican Congress and President Trump and it’s going to cause tremendous hurt. Prices have continued to be high. You wonder,” Rachelle said, “when you see a mom shopping, the mom that at one point was you…Will she be able to afford a gallon of milk this week for her son or daughter?”

Rachelle Evans, pictured with her husband, has worked at the Newport, WA Safeway store for ten years and is a member of UFCW 3000. Photo: Rachelle Evans

Rachelle, a member of UFCW 3000, struggles to grasp the motives of those bent on ending  SNAP and WIC funding. 

“I don’t understand it. That mom is worse off. Our community is worse off. And these cuts even hurt our store’s revenues and our state’s farmers. It’s bad for everyone. I just don’t understand it and it makes me sad.”

Rachelle’s not alone in those emotions. For WIC staff who are going without a paycheck, letting uncertainty around WIC funding persist is incomprehensible. 

“I always thought, working in the WIC program I would have this secure job,” said Mïlo. “[Other programs] are of course going to be on the chopping block, but not WIC.”

But that security is gone. 

“I grew up very poor,” said Mïlo. “I am having flashbacks to my childhood of food from the dollar store, the food pantry.”

In a few days, Mïlo will have to borrow money from their mom to make rent. Waiting for unemployment benefits to come in, they’re rationing medicine.

A shop steward and WFSE Local 443 vice president, Mïlo is trying to support fellow WIC workers. Yet, “it feels like I can’t stop the bleed,” they said. 

Fielding calls from coworkers while trying to figure out how to cover their own bills, Mïlo is also grappling with fears about the long-term impacts of the federal government’s here-today-gone-tomorrow approach to WIC funding.  

“My fear is that all the progress we have made will be unraveled,” said Mïlo. “I really fear that there’s going to be this huge erosion of trust and people are just going to stop getting the help and resources that they need.”

For now, Mïlo, their coworkers, and hundreds of thousands of families are living with uncertainty. Washington’s Department of Health is cycling workers through the few positions still funded, so workers can at least maintain health insurance coverage through November and families can still get a bit of assistance. 

“I think there are a lot of people who are feeling really overwhelmed and afraid to have hope,” mused Mïlo. “But that hope is like medicine that you need, the antidote to the poison that people are trying to feed us.”

Despite being temporarily laid off, Mïlo is still working to feed Washingtonians, organizing an infant formula drive for local foodbanks. 

“They can’t get rid of me that easily,” Mïlo said with a chuckle. “That’s the thing with resilience.”

For those able, donations to support workers impacted by the government shutdown can be made to the Washington State Labor Councils’ non-profit, the Foundation for Working Families.