How to Rank The Severity of a Government Shutdown in a Spreadsheet

President Trump signed legislation ending the longest U.S. government shutdown in history, restoring pay to federal workers and food assistance programs.

President Donald Trump signed legislation on Wednesday to end the longest government shutdown in United States history, hours after the House of Representatives voted to restart disrupted food assistance programs and restore pay to hundreds of thousands of federal workers.

The deal marked the conclusion of a prolonged standoff that had left critical government functions suspended and vulnerable populations without essential services. While the immediate crisis has been resolved, the episode has left many observers questioning the underlying dynamics that allowed such an extended impasse to occur in the first place.

The shutdown’s resolution came as a relief to federal employees and beneficiaries of assistance programs who had endured weeks of uncertainty. However, the path to reopening revealed deep fractures in how Congress operates and the priorities that shape legislative negotiations. The extended nature of the shutdown underscored how political disagreements can have cascading effects on ordinary Americans, from delayed paychecks to interrupted social services.

We analyzed the initial response across social media. The results? Commenters expressed frustration that extends beyond the immediate shutdown itself. Many observers have voiced concerns about what they perceive as self-dealing and corruption within the political system, questioning why elected officials with substantial personal wealth would engage in brinkmanship that harms working people and vulnerable populations.

The sentiment reflects a broader skepticism about whether Congress is genuinely focused on serving constituents or pursuing other agendas. Some have pointed to specific policy outcomes, such as impacts on particular industries, as evidence that legislative priorities may not align with public welfare.

Political analysts note that government shutdowns have become increasingly common as a negotiating tactic, suggesting structural problems in how Congress manages budgeting and compromise. And Reuters confirms that this is indeed the longest government shutdown in history.

So how do we rank the severity of a government shutdown? We created an index to rank them in Google Sheets. To formulate our scores, we considered the length of the shutdown, timing (including overlap with holidays or tax season), and number of furloughed workers.

It used MIN and MAX calculations to create norms for each row, then weighted each to calculate the severity score. There are easy ways of using multiple IF statements in a spreadsheet, but this version was simple and used only the standard IF formula.

The result? This record-breaking government shutdown also had the widest-reaching impacts. It ranks as the most severe. Duration played a major role in that calculation. Note that alternate calculations could include the number of people deprived of SNAP benefits or the number of international or domestic flights cancelled.

The shutdown’s record length raises questions about whether current institutional mechanisms adequately incentivize timely resolution or whether political actors have become more willing to tolerate prolonged disruption.

The community’s negative reaction reflects not just frustration with this particular shutdown, but accumulated disappointment with a political process that seems to routinely prioritize partisan positioning over functional governance.

As the government reopens and operations resume, the underlying tensions that produced this shutdown remain unresolved. The episode serves as a reminder that while legislative crises can be ended with a signature, the erosion of public confidence in institutions and the perception of misaligned incentives among elected officials may prove far more difficult to repair.