Hey there, 

Welcome back to another edition of Virginia Capital, Dogwood’s economic policy newsletter that puts workers first. 

Today, I would like to send my love and condolences to the family of Del. Candi Mundon King. Mundon King’s 15-year-old daughter, Candis King, passed away after a battle with sickle cell disease.

“She was so incredibly brave,” Mundon King told NBC4 Washington. “And she spent so much of her life battling pain, and most people could never tell because she danced and she joined color guard and she was in the choir. But we saw her every day struggling with sickle cell pain.”

The vast majority of people who suffer from sickle cell disease are Black. King has been an advocate for better understanding the disease and plans to continue creating awareness about it. 

May her daughter’s memory be a blessing. 

Below, I take a look at the costs of Republicans letting health care subsidies expire and check in on how to keep tabs on the labor market during the government shutdown. 

Plus, some new historical fiction set in Virginia reckons with the state’s slaveholding past.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., speaks during a news conference during day 3 of the government shutdown on Capitol Hill, Friday, Oct. 3, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)

The cost of healthcare in the US is already too high. But there is a policy decision before our leaders that can keep the costs slightly under control. 

As I’ve mentioned previously, Republicans are refusing to extend health care subsidies for Americans enrolled in Affordable Care Act (ACA) health care plans. Democrats are fighting to protect these subsidies as part of the ongoing power struggle playing out with the government shutdown. 

Thanks to the Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC), we now have a better idea of just how much the loss of these subsidies would cost Virginians. 

The biggest burden identified by the SCC would be felt in the western part of Virginia: the monthly premium for a couple in their 60s with an income of $84,700 in Roanoke County would go up by $1,076 if the ACA tax credits expire. 

Elsewhere around the state and on the income ladder, households will see premiums go up by hundreds of dollars per month. 

A couple in their 40s with two kids ages 10 and five making $96,450 in Virginia Beach or Fairfax County would see their monthly premium increase by $318. And a 45-year-old making $46,950 in Chesterfield or Henrico counties would see his or her monthly premium go up by $155.

“It is baffling that anyone could look at these numbers and decide that the best course of action is to continue sitting idly by, but that’s the choice that Republicans in Congress continue to make every single passing day during this government shutdown,” said US Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner in a statement last week.

In fact, the Trump administration seems to be using the impasse to punish federal workers even more than it already has. President Donald Trump reportedly is open to the idea of withholding back pay for some federal workers who are working during the shutdown. Democrats and some Republicans were quick to point out that doing so would be illegal. 

The economic pain of a shutdown is usually mitigated by federal workers getting their back pay. If those dollars in the form of wages really do go away after a shutdown, then it could raise real economic concern for Virginia. 

And those concerns are only becoming more urgent as we enter week two of the shutdown.

• The Richmonder’s Victoria A. Ifatusin has a good update on the collective bargaining battle playing out between school employees and Richmond Public Schools. 

                                                                                                                                                              

• Sabrina Moreno and Maya Goldman of Axios Richmond report on the impact of Medicaid cuts to Virginia hospitals. 

   

• WHRO’s Toby Cox has a look at how the ongoing government shutdown could make food insecurity in Hampton Roads go from bad to worse. 

A hiring sign is displayed at a restaurant in Wheeling, Ill., May 16, 2024.(AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)

Because of the government shutdown, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics did not release a report on the September employment situation when it was scheduled to do so on October 3. 

Absent that update, policy makers have to look elsewhere for an update on what by many accounts has been a sluggish jobs market. 

According to the Carlyle Group, an investment manager, the US created just 17,000 jobs in September, a weak showing, according to a Bloomberg report. Economists polled by Bloomberg had expected 54,000 new jobs for September. 

Here in Virginia, unemployment is on the rise in Northern Virginia localities like Alexandria and Arlington County. 

The economic pain of a prolonged government shutdown would likely make the job market even tougher. 

I’ll be keeping an eye on those employment numbers and how policy makers respond.

In this image provided by the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads, a tobacco rolling road in Northern Virginia, 1760. (AP Photo/U.S. Bureau of Public Roads)

A new novel set in late seventeenth century Tidewater Virginia is getting some buzz. 

In “This Here is Love” by Princess Joy L. Perry, who lives in Norfolk, the lives of three characters are intertwined across 384 pages. There’s Young Bless, the only child of an enslaved mother; David, who is helping Young Bless and is the son of a free Black man; and Jack Dane, a Scots-Irish boy sold into indentured servitude. 

The book got a good write-up in The New York Times: “Perry’s intersecting plots are gripping, but what’s more impressive is the way she guides us through her characters’ emotional depths.”

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