Ten days into the government shutdown, federal workers were officially feeling the pinch.
Today was supposed to be payday. Instead, hundreds of thousands are forced to make do without them.
More than 600,000 federal workers are currently furloughed, with about three times as many forced to work without pay, including active-duty military personnel who are set to miss their first paycheck next week.
Why did we write this
While many Americans are not feeling the effects of the government shutdown, federal workers just missed their first paychecks, the latest blow in a difficult year.
But it’s not just the pause in salary payments that causes them stress. The closure comes amid an ongoing purge of the federal government led by the Trump administration that has destroyed hundreds of thousands of jobs, shuttered entire agencies and left many remaining workers worried about the security of their jobs. Some have spouses who are also former federal employees who have already been laid off from their jobs. And they are on the verge of threats from both President Donald Trump and Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought that they will use the shutdown to lay off more people, or deny some of them pay when the shutdown ends.
One former State Department employee who was fired last summer will not receive severance pay until the government reopens. Her husband is still a federal employee and is currently on leave. (She asked that the name of his department not be used for fear of retaliation.)
“The closure was a big financial challenge for our family because we went from two incomes to one. And now, while the closure continues, that one income is no longer there,” she says.
She's facing a bleak job market due to a glut of recently laid-off workers, has stopped eating out and is looking for bargains at the grocery store. She is debating whether she should take her young daughter out of daycare to save money. It's a difficult step to reverse, given that day care centers in the Washington area often have months-long waiting lists, making it difficult for her to return to work if she does find one.
Closures often start with a whimper and end when voters begin to feel truly inconvenienced by their consequences. But it is the workers themselves who suffer the most. And it looks like it may last longer—and cut deeper—than other shutdowns.
Deadlock in Congress
Both sides seem prepared for a long fight. Democrats are demanding that Republicans include funding to expand government subsidies for people on Obamacare, who are about to face steep premium increases. They also want assurances that the Trump administration will not back out of new budget agreements, as it has done in recent months by laying off people and refusing to spend money allocated by Congress. Republicans are pushing to pass the legislation without strings attached, which would keep government spending at previously agreed upon levels through the end of November.
So far, polls show that voters blame Republicans more than Democrats for the shutdown, and that they overwhelmingly support extending Obamacare subsidies.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., told the Monitor on Wednesday that most of his constituents are “not paying much attention right now” to the shutdown because they aren't feeling it themselves.
“People in America are distracted by a lot of other things. [in D.C.] “We're putting too much emphasis on how important this is to the average voter right now,” he said. “It's the government employees who pay the most attention. And my heart goes out to them.”
The last significant government shutdown occurred in early 2019 and lasted a record 35 days. Then President Trump conceded, in part because normal people were starting to feel the effects of the shutdown—and polls showed voters blaming him. Major airports, including LaGuardia and Newark Liberty International in the New York region, experienced 90-minute flight delays due to the shutdown. A week before the city was set to host the Super Bowl, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport saw a rapid increase in wait times in security lines.
This time around, airports such as Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport have already seen significant delays as some air traffic controllers called in sick.
Impact on military personnel
It is not only civilian government employees who are facing the real consequences of this closure.
Active-duty military personnel are scheduled to be paid on Oct. 15, and this will be the first time in recent history that military personnel will not be exempt from the work stoppage. There is a bipartisan bill to exempt active-duty military personnel from military service, and rank-and-file lawmakers are being pressured to vote on it. But House GOP leaders are still sticking to their refusal to call members back to town for a vote unless Senate Democrats decide to withdraw.
On Thursday, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson went to C-SPAN answer constituents' calls — and was promptly scolded by Samantha, a Republican military spouse based at Fort Belvoir in Virginia, who said her family lives paycheck to paycheck and has “two medically fragile children” who “will not get the medications they need to live a full life” if her husband doesn't get paid on time.
“You have the power to do this. And as a Republican, I'm very disappointed in my party, and I'm very disappointed in you because you had the power to recall the House of Representatives,” she said. “I beg you to pass this law. My children could die.”
Speaker Johnson responded by expressing sympathy and blaming Democrats for refusing to support a clean extension. “We had a vote on paying the soldiers. It was a standing resolution three weeks ago,” he said.
Notably, a number of government employees fired or furloughed say they are glad Democrats forced the closure, despite the pain it causes them personally. They say they've been abused by the Trump administration for months and are glad Democrats are finally standing up and starting to have some influence.
“I'm actually glad there's a shutdown,” says one federal employee, saying they're relieved to see Democrats “stalling the brakes and actually trying to hold on.”
Reducing costs for summer camp and after-school childcare
Another former federal employee who spoke to the Monitor was fired earlier this year. His wife still works in a federal position, but she asked not to name the department for fear of retaliation from Trump administration officials.
“It’s traumatic—as intended,” he says. They tightened their belts, withdrew their child from summer camp programs after he was laid off, and eliminated after-school care to save money. He says job prospects in the area are rare. They are considering moving from Washington in search of better working conditions.
“Honestly, the joy of living in the DMV is gone,” the worker said, referring to the D.C.-Maryland-Virginia region. “It was torn down.”
OMB Director Vought said that was the goal in a 2024 speech in which he laid out his vision for a second Trump term.
“When [bureaucrats] when we wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly being looked at as villains,” he said. “We want to traumatize them.”
All federal workers interviewed for this story say they are worried the Trump administration will follow through on its threat to fire more federal workers as retaliation against Democrats and try to block pay for federal jobs they don't like once the shutdown ends. The White House internally circulated an Office of Management and Budget memorandum arguing that federal employees do not have an automatic right to withhold wages, despite a 2019 law that President Trump himself signed into law to ensure just that.
“We're going to make cuts that are going to be permanent. And we're only going to cut Democratic programs, I hate to tell you that,” President Trump said during a Cabinet meeting on Thursday. “They wanted to do it, so we'll give them a little taste of their own medicine.”
A year of uncertainty at work
This comes after months of stress and uncertainty for federal workers. One new IRS employee spent the first months of the year checking his email every morning to see if he had been fired because Mr. Trump's new Department of Governmental Effectiveness decided to fire all probationary employees who started work during the year, a category the new hire fell into. Their recent vacation is just one more “unfortunate thing happening on top of all the other unpleasant things happening this year.”
A Food and Drug Administration official says they feel like they've been “used as pawns” again. A Census Bureau official says the constant threat of layoffs has felt like “a swinging ax over our heads all year.” A Labor Department official says half of his colleagues have already been laid off this year, so the closure pales next to the “wrecking ball” the administration has already brought to the department.
One current State Department official says he's more worried about not being able to get paid now than during previous shutdowns, when it wasn't legally guaranteed because the Trump administration “ignored the law.” [in] in every possible way.” A former federal employee predicts the Trump administration will be happy to fight in court — and even if it loses, the damage will be done to families who have gone months or more without pay.
A State Department official says this shutdown is markedly different from others he's been through. This time, the closure came after months of worry that his work—and the entire bureau—would be eliminated. It has still been preserved. There has been little communication from department leadership, even compared to the shutdown in 2019 while Mr. Trump was in office.
“It felt like you were kicked out for a year,” he says. “And now it feels like you don’t exist.”
Victoria Hoffmann reported from Boston.
