#Shutdownstories: federal employees reveal impact of government closure

[nitpicker]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/26/shutdownstories-federal-employees-government-shutdown-impact

#Shutdownstories: federal employees reveal impact of government closure

Khushbu Shah

Wed 26 Dec 2018 06.00 GMT

Federal employees affected by the partial shutdown of the US government have been voicing their frustrations of spending the holidays worrying about their next paycheck. Donald Trump marked Christmas Day by insisting the shutdown will last until his demand for funds to build a wall on the US-Mexico border is met.

The US government partially shut down at midnight on Friday evening, and there is no sign yet of tangible efforts to reopen agencies closed by a political impasse over Trump’s demand for border wall funds. The shutdown is partial because 75% of government funding was already approved for the budget year that started in October. It’s the other 25% of government spending that’s at issue, and was expected to cut off spending for the departments of Homeland Security, Justice and Transportation among others.

Under the #shutdownstories hashtag, government employees are sharing strategies of surviving from paycheck to paycheck, and expressing worries about their mortgages and paying for Christmas gifts.

John Deal, a Nasa contractor in Virginia, whose wife also works for the agency, posted online to say his family had lost 100% of their income, for the time being, because of the shutdown. On top of that his son’s tuition fee is due at George Washington University in four weeks, he added.

“I budget ahead of time for Christmas and have saved for my son’s college tuition that will be due soon. So the burden of the shutdown for my family is more [of a] concern for my [family’s] living expense in the near future. Paying my mortgage, groceries & truck payment, etc,” he told the Guardian on Christmas Day.

More than 400,000 federal employees deemed “essential” are expected to continue to work through the shutdown, to ensure that critical operations in government proceed. But these workers are not likely to receive any compensation until it ends, and legislation will need to be passed to pay them retroactively.

More than 380,000 federal employees also face furloughs – unpaid time off – though Congress could pass legislation to pay workers for any pay missed as a result of furloughs.

More than 400,000 employees have been furloughed, including 41,000 federal law enforcement and corrections staffers, 88% of Department of Homeland Security employees and 5,000 US Forest Service firefighters, and 3,600 National Weather Service forecasters, data from Senator Patrick Leahy’s office indicates.
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[Cha]

1. K!

[Cha]

2. #trumpShutDown

[Scarsdale]

4. Politician's pay, and benefits

should be stopped in cases such as this. They are responsible for the shutdown. Either tell the orange mistake that he can not do this all by himself, or ignore him and continue on course. Disgraceful that a temper tantrum throwing senile senior citizen has this much power. The gop is solely responsible for the clown in the WH.

[DRoseDARs]

3. Wells Fargo has already made services available to help gov workers who bank with them.

I couldn't tell you how far they go to help as I'm not a gov worker, but at least the company does recognize that this is some bullshit that is utterly out of their customers' hands and in the very steady and stable genius hands of a super-chill and not-at-all-impulsive-or-petty statesman-like President Trump...

[Sherman A1]

5. This is just sad

To think that we have people who have a job and either are forced to take unpaid leave or are required to work for a deferred salary.

[malaise]

6. But but but the vile MAGAcretin said all 400,000 workers

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