NPR (“It’s supposed to be payday for many federal workers. Instead, they’re getting nothing“) starts with a discussion of hundreds of furloughed federal workers waiting in long lines for boxes of free food before getting to the details:
For many federal workers, Friday is supposed to be payday. Instead, they are getting nothing. No partial pay. No sign of when their paychecks might resume.
[…]
Altogether, about 1.4 million civilian federal employees across the country are going without pay, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center, a think tank in Washington, D.C. Roughly half of them are furloughed. The other half has been deemed essential and so is continuing to work.
For many people in both groups, the lapse in congressional appropriations has brought on new financial strain in a year that has already been tough.
“This whole fiscal year — 2025 — I was worried about my job, worried about getting RIF’d,” says Jay, a furloughed worker from the National Institutes of Health, referring to the reductions in force, or layoffs, that have already hit a number of agencies. “It was draining, emotionally draining. Now the reality is setting in when you’re not getting checks and you need to provide for your family.”
Jay, who asked to be identified by only his first name out of fear of losing his job, carried his two boxes away from the food distribution site in a stroller. He has a 1-year-old and a 5-year-old waiting for him at home.
In Tampa, Fla., Tierra Carter is still going to work, answering calls placed to the Social Security Administration’s 1-800 number. Carter, who serves as a union representative with the American Federation of Government Employees, says the lack of a paycheck has forced her to take out loans and seek a hardship withdrawal from her 401(k).
“I kind of feel like I’m in a pool and I’m trying to swim to the top, but every time I get to the middle, I’m getting knocked back down,” she says.
My wife and I would ordinarily have been paid yesterday; we weren’t. Additionally, our previous checks were 25% smaller than usual, since we were paid only for the last seven days of September and half a day (necessary to conduct “shutdown procedures”) on October 1. Thankfully, we have enough savings to weather this for a while.
Many, obviously, do not.
That civil servants are lining up to get welfare boxes and having to take out loans to pay their bills because Congress can’t do its job is shameful. That more than half of them are having to do so despite continuing to do their jobs is outrageous.
Alas, civil servants are not a sympathetic class. Most Americans think we’re overpaid and lazy.
The uniformed military, on the other hand, is widely admired. They only got their mid-month paychecks because the Trump administration shifted billions of dollars Congress appropriated for research and development to payroll. Unless they pull off that trick again, troops will not get paid next Friday. The Senate is in recess through Monday. That some anonymous donor has contributed $130 million toward military pay is interesting; it’s still roughly $6.4 billion shy.
