The government shutdown is ending, but when will things be back to normal?

The two biggest impacts in the wake of the shutdown were the lapse in SNAP benefits and massive delays and cancellations for air travel. Now the question is, how fast can they recover?

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The longest government shutdown in history came to an end Wednesday night, after the House approved the Senate's funding package and President Donald Trump signed the bill into law.

The funding bill will keep the government open through January 30th, 2026, with some specific parts of the government funded through the next year.

But repairing the chaos the shutdown cost us won't happen overnight. During the six-week shutdown, thousands of federal workers went without paychecks, access to food was stripped from millions of families, and air travel was disrupted across the country.

This big question now- how long will it take for everything to go back to normal?

Getting air travel back on track

US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy pumped the brakes on air travel in response to growing numbers of air traffic controllers and TSA agents calling out of work. Last week, 40 major airports across the country cancelled more than 2-thousand flights in an attempt to prioritize safety. Louisville International Airport was included on the list.

Now, airline leadership say they are confident the industry will bounce back quickly. Delta CEO Ed Bastian told CBS News he's expecting a return to normal in the coming days. "By the weekend, we're pretty much going to be full steam ahead," Bastian said.

He said air traffic control staff are expected to be paid in the next day or so, and once they receive paychecks, he anticipates the system will recover quickly.

Good news for everyone thinking about Thanksgiving travel- two weeks from today!

Funding SNAP benefits

The funding bill signed by President Trump will fully restore funding to the USDA, which in turn funds SNAP until the end of the 2026 fiscal year. But it won't be simple getting the money to recipients due to a series of legal challenges and funding disruptions facing the program since the shutdown started.

The USDA is anticipating that payments will resume to states within the next 24 hours, and then states will use the processes in place to reload individual EBT cards. That is a process that could take days or up to a week, depending on the state.

But some could see complications. Roughly 29 states already released full or partial SNAP payments over the weekend. For these states, it could time weeks or even months to reprogram their systems to account for previous payments and then enable additional partial payments.

In Kentucky, state leaders anticipate the 600,000 people who receive SNAP benefits will see at least partial funding this week.

Other shutdown impacts will take time to recover

One of the less talked-about impacts from the 43-day shutdown was a pause on federal funding for research grants. The National Institutes of Health (NIH), a major funder of university research, has warned universities about what could be a several-month delay in reviewing grant applications and then processing funding.

This is especially troubling for the country's major research institutes, which have already been hit hard by this administration's mass grant cancellations earlier in the year.

The shutdown has also added to the economy's existing challenges, which include high inflation, tariff uncertainty, and a stalled housing market. Still, few economists are predicting an impending recession.

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