Just one week from now tens of millions of families could go to bed hungry.

(AP) — A government shutdown Oct. 1 could immediately suspend or delay food stamp payments to some of the 46 million Americans who receive the food aid.
"If Congress does not act to avert a lapse in appropriations, then USDA will not have the funding necessary for SNAP benefits in October and will be forced to stop providing benefits within the first several days of October," said Catherine Cochran, a spokeswoman for USDA. "Once that occurs, families won't be able to use these benefits at grocery stores to buy the food their families need."

A shutdown will also prevent food stamps recipients from using anything left over from September.
Because food stamp benefits are modest, delaying food stamps by just a few days has an immediate impact.

Two-third of food stamp recipients are either elderly or children. Many of the rest are working poor.

the working poor have had it rough during this so-called recovery.
Even without a recession, working people are tapping every resource they can, including retirement savings.

With the effects of the financial crisis still lingering, 30 million Americans in the last 12 months tapped retirement savings to pay for an unexpected expense, new research shows.

Those without a 401k to tap have put themselves at the mercy of the financial predators.

The number of households tapping alternative financial services are on the rise, meaning that Americans are turning to non-bank lenders for credit: payday loans, refund-anticipation loans, pawnshops, and rent-to-own services.
According to the Urban Institute report, the number of households that used alternative credit products increased 7 percent between 2011 and 2013. And the kind of household seeking alternative financing is changing, too.

The working poor in this country are living on the shaky edge of complete catastrophe.

The most frightening finding in the Federal Reserve’s Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2014 concerns a matter of $400. Four-hundred bucks. Twenty twenties. Four Benjamins.

Or just enough to crush half of all American households.

“Forty-seven percent of respondents say they either could not cover an emergency expense costing $400, or would cover it by selling something or borrowing money,” reads this year’s annual report.

Gawd help us if we hit a recession this coming year.