The shutdown has been shut down, and economic wounds from the federal government standstill can begin to heal.

The past six weeks have been marred by a disruption in food benefits, flight delays and cancellations, and a plunge in consumer sentiment.

But, with Congress voting Wednesday to flip the government’s light switch back on, billions of federal dollars will again flow.

Numbers quantifying the shutdown — like the roughly $15 billion of gross domestic product lost each week — are hard to wrap one’s mind around, but shutdowns, generally, leave a modest long-term economic footprint.

Government employees are expected to receive back pay, despite efforts from President Donald Trump, and much of the harm is expected to be “undone,” said David Kass, a professor at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business.

The economic wounds heal, but they leave scars — especially in Maryland, which is more reliant than many other states on federal dollars. It has the third-most federal jobs and the fifth-most federal defense spending, Comptroller Brooke Lierman wrote in a June report.

Maryland lawmakers must close a budget hole of $1.4 billion for next year, a significantly tougher challenge than they’d anticipated, in part because of federal crosscurrents such as the shutdown.

Nationally, hundreds of thousands of federal workers were furloughed. In the Washington area, Bank of America reported consumers spending about 1.4% less on their credit and debit cards from Oct. 1 to Oct. 18, as compared to last year, likely due to the shutdown.

Though spending is expected to rebound, ripple effects remain.

“There is some permanent damage done,” Kass said.

The loss of food assistance or a business missing out on a federal contract can have profound, localized consequences. And restaurants, for example, could close after facing a prolonged period of low revenue, Kass said.

If workers who dined out once a week at a certain restaurant paused during the shutdown, they may return to that cadence now, he said. But they’re less likely to dine out twice a week to make up for the span of slower economic activity — leaving that restaurateur with a dip in revenue.

Lierman emphasized to state lawmakers the importance of continuing food assistance benefits despite Trump declining to, arguing that the “business impact of SNAP cuts could be immediate and severe.”

Without food assistance, grocery stores would suffer, she said.

“For smaller retailers operating on tight margins, this money can mean the difference between staying open and closing their doors, between maintaining their workforce and making layoffs,” she said in late October.

Ultimately, the state pledged to provide 50% of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits to Marylanders during the federal shutdown.

The country’s gross domestic product declined during the 35-day federal shutdown in 2019, but stronger subsequent quarters partially made up for that dip. Overall, GDP was just 0.02% smaller than it would have been otherwise, the Congressional Budget Office reported.

This year’s effects could be similar, but Maryland — which employs about 327,000 federal workers — is expected to be uniquely affected.

“It’s probably been hit far harder,” Kass said, “than any other metropolitan area.”

It’s difficult to measure the current shutdown’s impacts as they happen, but the 2019 shutdown — which had been the longest until this year’s record-breaker — cost Maryland tens of millions of dollars in tax revenues.

A physical manifestation of the slowed economy can be seen on trains.

The Maryland Transit Administration did not reply when asked for data from recent months, but fewer Marylanders traveled and commuted during the prior shutdown, from late December 2018 through Jan. 25, 2019. In January 2018 and 2020, the Maryland Area Rail Commuter service averaged 768,000 riders. But in January 2019 that figure decreased by about 15% to 658,000 riders.

Restaurant owner Lorraine Lee measures the shutdown’s ramifications in sandwiches sold.

The first year of owning any business is often the hardest, and Lee opened her Jersey Mike’s location in Laurel in December. Her revenue decreased about 20% during the shutdown, she estimated.

“It’s certainly added to the first-year challenges,” she said.

Lee, 64, grew up in Baltimore’s McCulloh Homes and retired five years ago from a career in finance. She became one of the few Black women to own a Jersey Mike’s, which she co-owns with her son and daughter.

During the shutdown, the sandwich shop offered a 25% discount for federal workers and about 20 such employees came in each day.

“They’ve been so gracious,” she said.

Kass said that when compared to major events — say, the 2008 financial crisis or the 2020 pandemic — the shutdown is merely a blip.

“But this is still, in many people’s lives, for those who lost their jobs or are fearful of losing their jobs, it is catastrophic,” he said.