Alan Ward, chairman of the Residential Landlords Association, said: "Tenants are entitled to a safe, legal and secure home, and landlords should not delay spending on essential maintenance and repairs.
It has begun to make the case that spending on essential services, on reducing inequality, is in and of itself an economic benefit – challenging the old economic consensus.
But the Centre for American Progress, a think-tank, reached much the same conclusion in a report that looked only at the federal share of spending on essential projects.
There's a general sense that instead of targeting poverty they are targeting the poor, and there has been a real running down of spending on essential public services," she said.
Most Wall Street economists have said that the consequences of a temporary government shutdown would be relatively insignificant, particularly because spending on essential services — a large portion of the budget — would continue.
Failure to address the crises could result in draconian pension cuts in the future, painful tax increases or a shift in spending from essential government services to pension costs.
Unfortunately, many states have taken a short-term attitude toward solving their economic problems: in order to balance budgets in the current year, they cut spending on essential public programs like schools, public assistance, and infrastructure.
Administration officials said the projects were being delayed as part of the emergency budget measures the Legislature passed on Friday and Monday that restrict spending to essentials.
The report, conducted in conjunction with Ipsos Mori, also found that spending on essentials such as food, drink, rent and utility bills rose for the first time since November 2014, albeit by only 0.1% on the previous year.
After spending on essentials like rent and sending money home to her parents, Ms. Murthy said she was still left with enough to splurge on imported cosmetics and jeans, a cellphone and dinner at an American chain restaurant.
