US workers relying on soup kitchens as government shutdown continues

  • Video report by ITV News Washington Correspondent Robert Moore

Many workers in the US are having to rely on soup kitchens and food banks as the government shutdown finds itself in a fourth week.

Some 800,000 federal workers have not been paid since the government went into shutdown at the tail end of December, with Democrats and Republicans at an impasse over Donald Trump's plans for a border wall.

Government employees are now finding it difficult to make ends meet, as they continue to receive no income.

Some 800,000 federal workers are without pay in the US.

Some are furious at the humiliation of having to work for free or being ordered to stay at home.

One worker told ITV News: "Do your job!

"That's it, just do your job. Because clearly if we don't do our jobs we're going to get fired."

Another said: "We're people and we have lives, and while you continue to still get paid, we have families and you need to get it fixed."

Still another said: "We are pawns in a political fight, and we just want to do the job we are getting paid for."

The US government shutdown is in its fourth week.

One of the food kitchens helping struggling workers is just a few hundred metres from the White House itself.

Inside one at least 4,000 meals a day are handed out.

Even police officers are among those moved to volunteer.