A few days after the U.S. government ordered the partial shutdown of its operations indefinitely, its negative effects can already be felt in various regions of the country.
The government shutdown has sent home almost 800,000 "non-essential" employees--workers that in many cases belong to the Latino community in the United States.
According to information published by news website Terra, the U.S. federal government employs 156,651 Latinos, reads the lastest Annual Report to the President on Hispanic Employment, delivered last September.
In the report, it's stated that Hispanics represent 8.2 percent of the workforce employed by the federal administration, almost 0.1 percent more than in 2011.
According to Terra, the biggest employer of Hispanic workers of the administration is the Department of Homeland Security with 38,327 employees, followed by the Department of Veteran Affairs with 20,556 Hispanic workers and the Army with 18,569.
In this way, the shutdown will affect at least a percentage of all the Hispanic employees of the United States government.
But it's not only Hispanic employees that will be affected by the shutdown. As the Department of Agriculture had announced after the shutdown, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), clinic services, food stamps and administrative costs were left "without federal funding", according to newspaper La Opinión.
That's terrible news for the 9 million pregnant women or those with small children who are supported by WIC. Almost 45 percent of those women are Hispanic.
The third aspect that will be affected by the government shutdown is related to education. According to a report by the California Head Start Association (CRHS), 73.31 percent of its students are Latinos.
Due to the government shutdown, the CRHS has closed down its 16 locations, leaving 240 employees unpaid and thousands of students without education.