The dust is only just beginning to settle after the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, and the aftershocks are rippling through American households—especially among parents, who are voicing their disapproval of President Donald Trump in growing numbers. According to a recent poll by Echelon Insights, conducted between November 13 and 17, 2025, the president’s approval rating among parents has plummeted compared to just a month prior. In the November survey, 43 percent of parents with children under 18 said they had a "very unfavorable" view of Trump, a sharp 7 percent increase from 36 percent in October. The number of parents who viewed Trump favorably also dropped by 3 percent in the same period. This trend wasn’t isolated to parents alone—the wider voting population also reported a 5 percent decrease in favorable views toward the president.
What’s behind this sudden shift? The timing of the polls is no coincidence. Most of the period between the October and November surveys was marked by a six-week government shutdown, the longest in the nation’s history. The shutdown’s impact on federal programs and household finances was immediate and profound, particularly for America’s most vulnerable families. Payments for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)—which helps low-income families cover grocery costs—were delayed, as were disbursements from the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), which helps families keep the lights and heat on. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of federal workers, including air traffic controllers, were forced to work without pay, with some taking second jobs just to make ends meet.
Newsweek reports that the shutdown “put significant strain on some of America’s most vulnerable families,” and the numbers back this up. In the fiscal year 2023, 39 percent of SNAP recipients were children under 18, and 11 percent were children under five. The delay in SNAP benefits left millions scrambling. Taryn Morrissey, professor and chair of the Department of Public Administration and Policy at American University, told Newsweek, “Most low-income families, especially households with children, lack the assets or wealth necessary to buffer the negative effects of a substantial, even temporary, dip in resources.” She added, “Families were without the resources that they rely on to literally put food on the table,” which likely led to “increases in food insecurity among children and families.”
The consequences of food insecurity are well-documented. Morrissey explained, “A wealth of research shows the harms of food insecurity for children’s health and other outcomes; other research shows the important role that SNAP plays in reducing food insecurity and improving children’s short- and long-term outcomes, including health care access and health.” The shutdown, by disrupting this crucial support, “shone a light on key issues facing Americans, not only SNAP benefits and the rising costs of living, but also the changes being made to Affordable Care Act (ACA) plans,” Newsweek noted. With ACA monthly premiums set to rise by an average of 20 percent in 2026, the financial squeeze on families is only tightening.
But the shutdown’s effects weren’t limited to food and healthcare. The chaos extended to the nation’s airports, where unpaid air traffic controllers struggled to keep operations running safely. According to a sharply-worded opinion piece published in Salon, the refusal to fund SNAP benefits—despite court orders—left 42 million Americans without food assistance, while the lack of pay for air traffic controllers led to “chaos at the nation’s airports.” The piece didn’t mince words: “A refusal to fund SNAP benefits, despite court orders, leaving 42 million Americans hungry; a desire to get unhoused people out of sight and out of mind; a likely 53% income tax increase for people who make $15,000 or less; a willy-nilly tariff policy that raises prices for all American consumers, costing the average household thousands a year—just for starters.”
Critics argue that the shutdown was politically motivated, with Republicans refusing to negotiate and prioritizing tax breaks for the wealthy over support for the poor and working class. The Salon article lambasted the Trump administration’s approach, calling it “Donald Trump’s anti-Christian War on the Poor.” The author drew parallels to Charles Dickens’s critique of 19th-century British poor laws, suggesting that Trump’s “Big Brutal Bill amounted to nothing more than the rich taking more from the poor and working class.”
There’s also the argument that Trump’s economic policies—especially tariffs—have only made matters worse for ordinary Americans. Shana Kushner Gadarian, a professor of political science at Syracuse University, told Newsweek, “The tariffs have made inflation worse, and prices worse, and the government shutdown only made those issues more clear.” She added, “During the shutdown, people lost access to SNAP when they didn’t have to, as there was an actual contingency plan that would have kept SNAP funding going and the administration fought that, now has a big impact on young kids.”
Beyond SNAP, the shutdown and related budget cuts have hit other programs hard. Medicaid, the federal-state health insurance program for 70 million Americans, is facing a $1 trillion cut over the next decade, threatening the closure of hundreds of rural hospitals and clinics. The Republican budget also ties Medicaid benefits to stricter work requirements and removes tax credits for people purchasing insurance through the ACA. As Salon points out, “The shutdown was politically motivated, with Republicans refusing negotiations and causing millions to lose access to health insurance and SNAP benefits.”
Housing assistance, preschool and after-school programs, and literacy initiatives have also faced the chopping block. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, created to protect consumers from predatory financial practices, is being gutted. These policies, critics say, collectively amount to a “war on the poor,” with long-term negative impacts not just for those at the bottom, but for the future of all Americans. “When children eat adequately, they perform better in school. When working families don’t choose between food and rent, they maintain stable housing and employment. When seniors afford proper nutrition, they face fewer health crises. These human outcomes have economic dimensions, but they matter first because they’re the right thing to do,” financial and economics writer Morgan Harman wrote, as cited by Salon.
Public frustration is mounting. Morrissey told Newsweek, “I think that families’ high and rising cost of living and the lack of policy action in making basic necessities—from food, to housing, to diapers, to child care—affordable is leading to understandable frustration with the Trump administration.” She continued, “We have policies that can make families’ lives more affordable and help parents manage their family and work responsibilities while improving children’s health and other outcomes—paid family and medical leave, child care subsidies, universal preschool, public health insurance, and SNAP are examples—but this administration has chosen to cut some of these effective programs to cut taxes. Recent policies like those in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025 have redistributed resources from the poor to the wealthy, and from the younger generations to older generations.”
As the nation reflects on the turmoil of the past months, one thing is clear: the government shutdown and its aftermath have left deep scars. The drop in Trump’s approval ratings among parents is more than a political statistic—it’s a sign of widespread anxiety and frustration as families grapple with rising costs, reduced support, and a sense that their concerns are falling on deaf ears in Washington.
As winter approaches, the question on many minds is whether those in power will heed these warnings, or whether the cycle of political brinkmanship and economic hardship will continue to define American life.
