Google searches about what it would mean for people in their everyday lives were spiking on Monday morning about the possibility of a government shutdown.
But in the four hours before the workday kicks off on Monday, search interest in how a shutdown would affect Social Security, veterans' benefits and the U.S. dollar began to rise. Many of these queries were marked as 'breakout' requests, meaning that search interest in them was more than 5,000% higher than in the previous search period, in this case, 5,000% higher than four hours earlier. This means they had a tremendous increase, probably because these searches were new and had few prior searches, Google explains. Many of the questions, for example, were not as popular as one week ago.
Now the shutdown is nigh. In Washington, the issue is a clash between House conservatives and Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who reached a spending deal with President Joe Biden earlier this year. If there is no agreement on either a longer-term or short-term budget by midnight Saturday, Sept. 30, the government will partially shut down Sunday, Oct. 1.
analysts warn that 'perhaps a long one lasting into the winter' will be the end of the government's government shutdown.
Some breakout Google searches related to government shutdowns in the US on Monday included:
Google search trends are constantly changing and varying, which is why it is important to note that real-time Google search trends are always changing. So these searches may have risen or fallen since the publishing of this article, and new ones may have taken their place - such as searches for whether members of Congress still receive pay during a shutdown.
The White House has been calling out these tensions as it pushes congressional Republicans to arrive at a spending agreement. President Biden, blaming the stalemate on a'small group of extreme Republicans' during a dinner for the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation over the weekend, said that a shutdown could affect everything from food safety to cancer research to Head Start programs for children. The Transportation Secretary, Pete Buttigieg, has said a shutdown would worsen the shortage of air traffic controllers by disrupting their training, while working controllers would not get paid.
As MarketWatch columnist Mark Hulbert tells us, monthly Social Security checks will not be affected if the government shuts down. He's written about what a shutdown would mean for Social Security here.
Aarthi Swaminathan, a real estate writer, warns that a government shutdown could leave thousands of federally backed mortgages in limbo.
And Washington, D.C., Bureau Chief Robert Schroeder has looked at other areas that could be affected by a partial shutdown, such as mail service, federal-worker furloughs and national parks. The Washington correspondent Victor Reklaitis wrote about what a stock market shutdown could mean for the nation's stock market.