Washington A government shutdown could put hundreds of thousands of federal employees at risk of losing their future paychecks just days before the busiest time of year—the holidays.
While some people may have to report to work if their position is deemed important, many others will be placed on furlough. Federal workers in both situations will be paid back after the shutdown concludes, but no new paychecks will be issued until the funding deadline expires on Saturday at 12:01 a.m. ET.
According to Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees union, “even though retroactive pay is legally guaranteed, bills, rent, and other financial obligations don’t wait, which forces families to make a difficult choice during these holiday seasons.”
The U.S. Office of Personnel Management said that federal employees will not have their paychecks for work from earlier in December delayed. Meanwhile, depending on how long a shutdown lasts, paychecks that reflect labor from the second part of the month may be affected.
During a shutdown, members of Congress continue to receive their full salary.
In 2018 and 2019, around 800,000 government workers were placed on furlough or worked without compensation during a government shutdown. At the height of the shutdown in 2013, some 850,000 people were placed on furlough per day.
Most of our rank-and-file employees are living paycheck to paycheck. However, since it’s Christmas, these men have already used their funds to purchase Christmas presents,” stated Johnny Jones, a union leader and Transportation Security Administration officer at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. “The politicians are going to be the real Grinches around here.”
In order to have enough cash to get through a possible government shutdown, Jones said, his union’s members are already talking about how to return or pawn holiday gifts.
A 1,500-page bipartisan funding bill that would have kept the federal government funded through the middle of March was essentially killed by President-elect Donald Trump and his buddy Elon Musk, he said. (On Thursday night, the House rejected a revised version of the measure that Musk and Trump supported.)
“The whole workforce was anticipating there would be funding that lasts for the first few months of the year,” Jones stated. “Then, next thing you know, Trump and Elon Musk are controlling our lives.”
During the 2018–19 shutdown, Joe Shuker, a 66-year-old union leader and TSA officer at Philadelphia International Airport, said that he and his coworkers missed several paychecks.
“We had guys going to food banks after they missed that first check,” he stated. “Food was the top priority for a 26-year-old man who was struggling to make ends meet while still having children, a mortgage, and auto payments. They were forced to decide between setting the table with food and filling the automobile with gas.
Shuker went on to say that a shutdown makes an already stressful profession even more so.
“Our job is to search for bombs. “It’s already stressful,” he remarked. “If you ve got an employee worried about feeding their kids and how they re going to get to work the next day it s a lot.”
According to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, federal employees who were forced to work or placed on furlough will receive their compensation retroactively.Workers have previously received paid retroactively, and in 2019, Congress enacted a bill guaranteeing future back pay to furloughed workers.
However, the treatment of federal contractors is different. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget asserts that federal contractors are not entitled to reimbursement.
Jaime Contreras, executive vice president of 32BJ SEIU, which has government contractors in the Washington, D.C., area among its members, said, “It’s really a dark day when an unelected billionaire like Elon Musk is able to tank a negotiated agreement at the eleventh hour, frankly, playing games with the livelihoods of hard working people like our members in the federal buildings.”
According to Contreras, his union represents about 2,400 employees who work under federal contracts, such as food service employees, cleaners, and security guards. He said that many members were not compensated during earlier government shutdowns.
“They have been loyal workers in the federal government, and this is just not a way for us to treat [them], whether they’re government employees or contracted government employees,” Contreras stated. “It’s just plain and simple wrong.”
Getting food would be the most difficult aspect of weathering another government shutdown, according to Bonita Williams, an 18-year veteran of the State Department’s federally contracted cleaning staff.
Williams, sixty-two, has thirteen grandchildren and five children. She claimed that all of her kids are federal employees as well, and that during a previous shutdown, they visited a food bank that had run out of supplies when they needed them.
“I’m mad because it ain’t gonna be no holiday, because you have to save your money because you don’t know what’s going to happen,” Williams stated. “You need to consider whether you want to purchase food. Or would you like to purchase Christmas presents for your grandchildren?
“I’d rather see them with food on the table,” she replied.
Williams stated that she won’t be able to assist her family as much as she usually would if she is impacted by another government shutdown. Williams kept working and getting paid during the last government shutdown, but her kids had nowhere to work.
She added that she was behind on her rent and received a notice to disconnect her electricity. “I was working for me, my kids, and my grandkids, and I’m only one person,” she said.
“We all struggle, and it’s so stressful that you just sometimes you wake up in the morning and you just don’t want to get out of bed,” she stated. “You keep crying, you keep crying. However, since they are experiencing the same situation as you, you cannot turn to anyone.
Daniel Arkin reported from New York City, while Megan Lebowitz reported from Washington, D.C.
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