The state’s Comptroller is warning that a prolonged government shutdown could depress the state’s already struggling economy.
The partial federal government shutdown is affecting about 116,000 federal workers in New York who are furloughed because of the shutdown.
But State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli says a prolonged crisis could hurt New York’s fragile economic recovery as well.
And he says if Congress fails to agree on raising the federal debt ceiling later this month, then the stock market, and the bond markets could suffer. That could negatively impact the state’s pension fund as well as private retirement accounts.
“If the federal government is viewed as a dead beat, that’s going to have reverberations throughout the rest of government finance,” DiNapoli said.
“That’s a troubling specter that’s hanging out there.”
Di Napoli says if the shut down continues until later in the year, federal funding for expensive programs like Medicaid could be jeopardized.
