Donald Trump’s commerce secretary is facing criticism for saying he doesn’t “understand why” unpaid government workers are turning to food banks, suggesting that they should take out loans instead.

Wilbur Ross – a self-proclaimed billionaire and one of the richest members of Trump’s cabinet – was asked about federal workers turning to places like homeless shelters for food donations as the partial government shutdown drags on into its second month.

“I know they are, and I don’t really quite understand why,” he said in an interview on CNBC’s Squawk Box. “The obligations that they would undertake, say borrowing from a bank or a credit union, are in effect federally guaranteed. So the 30 days of pay that some people will be out, there’s no real reason why they shouldn’t be able to get a loan against it.”

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Some 800,000 federal workers have not been paid since a partial government shutdown began on 22 December, after Donald Trump refused to authorize government funding unless Congress agrees to his demands for funds to build a wall on the US-Mexico border.

“The banks and credit unions should be making credit available to them. When you think about it, these are basically government-guaranteed loans, because the government has committed these folks will get back pay once this whole thing gets settled down,” Ross said. “Now, true, the people might have to pay a little bit of interest. But the idea that it’s paycheck or zero is not a really valid idea. There’s no reason why some institution wouldn’t be willing to lend.”

His comments quickly drew fire from critics who called him out of touch.

“Is this the ‘let them eat cake’ kind of attitude?” the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said at a weekly press conference. “Or call your daddy for money?”

“This is billionaire Wilbur Ross saying he doesn’t understand why federal workers not getting paid during the #TrumpShutdown don’t just take out loans *to feed their families*. Unreal,” the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, said in a tweet.

The Consumer Federation of America executive director, Jack Gillis, said the commerce secretary’s comments were out of sync with the reality of consumer lending.

“One of the challenges the workers are going to face in getting loans is they have zero income right now. Your income is the most important driver of your ability to get a loan,” he said.

A number of local banks and credit unions around the country have in fact offered interest-free loans to affected federal workers, but Gillis said that is not something all workers can count on. “At this point, it’s few and far between in terms of availability, he said.

Getting a loan is not as simple as walking into a bank and asking for one, even for people with once-steady incomes.

“For virtually every loan, you need some collateral. The concept of walking into a financial institution and saying, ‘I need a loan for 30 days to carry me through’ is a ludicrous concept,” Gillis said. “You have to have collateral, which is why some people may tap into second mortgages on their homes.”

He warned that federal workers may be ensnared by notorious payday loan operations, which charge sky-high interest rates.

“It’s going to be very easy for some of these folks to become victims of payday lenders, and end up paying 200%, 300% interest because they need the money fast and they may not have the credit rating necessary to get a personal loan,” he said. “This is the perfect environment for payday lenders to wreak havoc.”

Ross later sought to clarify his comments, telling Bloomberg TV that he was just trying to make sure that “workers who are experiencing liquidity crises” know that government employee credit unions are offering low-interest loans.

“We’re aware, painfully aware, that there are hardships inflicted on the individual workers,” he said.

In the CNBC interview, Ross also played down the importance of the 800,000 unpaid workers in a broader economic context.

“I think that’s a great deal of hyperbole,” he said of predictions that the shutdown would hurt the country’s image.

“You’re talking about 800,000 workers, and while I feel sorry for the individuals that have hardship cases, 800,000 workers. If they never got their pay – which is not the case, they will eventually get it, but if they never got it, you’re talking about a third of a percent on our GDP. So it’s not like it’s a gigantic number overall.”

Trump, too, sought to downplay the comments. Ross was probably trying to suggest that supermarkets and banks would be willing to float customers unable to pay, Trump said in rambling remarks at the White House. “They know the people, they’ve been dealing with them for years, and they work along,” Trump said.