November 10, 2025
Statement on the 2025 government shutdown
Restore the social safety net!
Defund the Pentagon, ICE and Homeland Security
As the government shutdown drags on, millions of working people, especially women, children, people of color, and the most vulnerable, are being held hostage by a political system that serves profit over people. Federal employees are being forced to work without pay, while Congress continues to collect its checks. Families are going hungry, childcare and health programs are closing, and those who were already struggling to survive are being pushed closer to the edge.
This crisis lays bare the inhumanity of capitalism, a system upheld by both Democrats and Republicans. The Democrats’ hands are far from clean: Bill Clinton’s 1996 welfare “reform” gutted public assistance and sentenced generations of women and children to poverty. Today, the same bipartisan cruelty continues as both parties fund endless wars, corporate bailouts, and a bloated military-industrial complex while shredding what remains of the social safety net.
We support efforts to maintain and expand healthcare access, but the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was never enough, and it has only grown less affordable. The subsidies it provides are a gift to insurance and pharmaceutical corporations, who are still hungry for more. Now, new “work requirements” for Medicaid recipients are another money-making scheme, enriching private companies who will be hired to police the poor.
The truth is undeniable: survival under capitalism is becoming impossible. It’s time for socialism: an economic system run by and for the people, not for the profits of the few.
We demand:
- Restore and expand all human services and social supports
- A moratorium on evictions and utility shutoffs during the shutdown
- Eliminate student debt
- A nationalized healthcare and pharmaceutical system under workers’ control
- Stop the US war industry – Defund the Pentagon, ICE, and Homeland Security
- Open the borders and release all ICE detainees
- Build toward a general strike to stop all rollbacks and defend working people
Women have always been at the forefront of every struggle for justice. Once again, we must lead, linking arms across movements to demand an economy that serves human needs, not corporate greed.
Radical Women calls for solidarity, resistance, and socialist solutions. The time to act is now.
Find Free Food and Groceries
See this online directory of food resources and other aid for people in poverty:
https://www.feedingamerica.org/need-help-find-food
Other resources during the shutdown:
https://foodlifeline.org/
Move-on petition to Agriculture Secretary:
“Stop playing politics with food assistance programs“