Wilbur Ross: Trump cabinet member worth $700m ‘doesn’t understand’ why federal workers are using food banks during shutdown

Many federal workers have been forced to rely on help from food pantries, or to pick up second jobs

Commerce secretary Wilbur Ross has said he does not understand why federal workers who have already missed one pay check as a result of the government shut down, have been relying on food banks to keep being able to feed their families.

Mr Ross suggested the 800,000 federal workers – who have not been paid as a result of the shutdown fueled by Donald Trump’s refusal to sign a funding bill that does not include border wall funding – should just take out loans.

“I know they are and I don’t really quite understand why,” Mr Ross said on CNBC, hen asked about the use of food banks.

The government shutdown has now lasted 34 days, and several Republican senators have indicated they think it is time for an end to the shutdown with or without border wall funding. While the Democratic controlled House has repeatedly passed bills to reopen the government, Senate majority Leader Mitch McConnell has refusd to bring a bill to the floor for a vote that Mr Trump would veto, even if there were majority support in the chamber.

Mr Ross continued: “So the 30 days of pay that some people will be out, there’s no real reason why they shouldn’t be able to get a loan against it, and we’ve seen a number of ads of financial institutions doing that.”

Meanwhile, federal employees have begun showing up to food banks in their federal uniforms, while other stories of charity — a teenager donating a recently-won lifetime supply of peanut butter, for instance — have proliferated.

“It was a really sobering moment for her to have to step in and say, ‘I need help’”, Kellie O’Connell, the CEO of Lakeview Pantry in the Chicago area, told the Chicago Tribune of a federal employee who cried as she signed up for assistance.

Mr Ross is reportedly worth roughly $700m, an amount of wealth that is astronomical compared to the financial circumstances of the vast majority of government workers.

Many of those workers live paycheck to paycheck, and have been forced to work second jobs to even pay for gas to get to work if they have been deemed “essential” and forced to work during the shutdown without pay.

Mr Trump, who has forced the now 34-day-long shutdown, signed a bill last week promising backpay for federal workers impacted by the government. But, some federal contractors may still not receive any backpay.

As the shutdown has progressed, hundreds of banks and credit unions have offered low or no-interest loans that can be taken out against that back pay, but stories of federal workers struggling to make ends meet abound.