(NEXSTAR) — While some employees paid biweekly are in line to receive their second of three paychecks this month on Friday, many federal employees won’t see a check at all as the government shutdown drags on.
As of Tuesday, the government shutdown has entered its 21st day, the second such shutdown to last three weeks. Should the shutdown continue into November, it could approach — and even surpass — the longest on record.
Without a deal, many of the 2.4 million-strong federal workforce remain without pay. They last received paychecks on Oct. 10, but that only covered a pay period through Sept. 30, leaving them without four days of pay, essentially.
As The Hill reported earlier this month, workers who received partial paychecks were air traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration employees critical for keeping the nation’s airports running.
Some federal workers who would otherwise not be paid during a shutdown have received some reprieve, too.
That includes U.S. Coast Guard service members, who are being paid with funds from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, The Hill previously reported. These service members, along with the rest of the military, were paid last Wednesday. For the latter group of service members, paychecks were dispersed using “approximately $8 billion of unobligated research testing and evaluation funds (RDTE) from the prior fiscal year,” a Defense Department official told The Hill.
A second payment to servicemembers, should the shutdown continue, seems unlikely, the Associated Press reported last week.
Funds from the One Big Beautiful Bill will also be used to pay “more than 70,000 sworn law enforcement officers” under the Department of Homeland Security, a spokesperson confirmed to Nexstar. That includes officers with Customs and Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Secret Service Special Agents, and air marshals with the TSA.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said these “super checks” — covering “the 4 days lost, their overtime, and their next pay period” — would be dispersed by Wednesday.
FBI Director Kash Patel said last week that FBI special agents would also still be paid, though he did not say where funds would be coming from.
Other workers — like those air traffic controllers and TSA agents who received partial paychecks — continue to work without pay. Some of those employees have instead opted not to work, prompting staffing shortages at U.S. airports, including in some of the nation’s biggest cities.
Thousands more federal employees have been laid off or furloughed since the shutdown began, the latter including more than three-quarters of the staff at the National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees the U.S.’s nuclear stockpile.
The government tab for paying furloughed workers while they are at home comes to roughly $400 million a day, according to a CBO estimate provided at the request of Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa.
Traditionally, those who go unpaid during shutdowns receive back pay once the stalemate ends. President Trump has, however, threatened to do away with that guaranteed back pay, despite a law passed during his first term stipulating that federal workers must be paid after a shutdown.
The administration is also trying to fire thousands of federal workers in agencies that don’t align with its priorities. Republican leaders in Congress have said that’s part of the fallout from a shutdown. Past presidents, however, did not use shutdowns to engage in mass firings.
The Senate, which was unable to pass the House-passed continuing resolution on Monday, is scheduled to vote on the stopgap funding bill Wednesday.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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