Author: Carl Page 31 of 151

Overall, about 420,000 government employees are working under the promise they will be paid retroactively, with nearly another 350,000 on furlough at home. This does not account for the hundreds of thousands of contractors who will never see this missing pay. This includes the janitorial, food service, information technology and security professionals. Most make at or near minimum wage and cannot afford to miss pay checks. As the shutdown lasts into its third week, these people are missing pay checks and paying the price of a prolonged fight in the government.

Over a million people are being hurt directly by the shutdown which doesn’t even account for local restaurants and convenience stores who benefit from the foot traffic and nutrtional needs of those workers. Uber, Lyft and taxi drivers are seeing a sharp decline in business due to the lack of people moving around the city either to commute or to take meetings throughout town.

The public transit system is taking a huge hit with nearly 40% of its daily commuters government employees and contractors.

It’s also outrageously expensive. The U.S. economy will have lost $3.6 billion by Friday, according to S&P. In 2013, the government shutdown cost $24 billion after just 16 days. As we roll into Days 21 and 22.

Here is a snapshot of what’s not getting done and a reminder that anyone still working is not getting paid to work. How long would you do your job without a pay check?

See How the Effects of the Government Shutdown Are Piling Up

What’s Already Happened

Dec 22nd:

• The Food and Drug Administration stops its routine inspections and many research activities and stops accepting approval applications for new drugs.

Dec 26:

• The Federal Emergency Management Agency issues a “stop work” order to all contractors, telling them they will not be paid.

Dec 28:

• The Department of Agriculture closes its Farm Service Agency county offices and later extends a deadline for farmers to apply for subsidies to offset the effects of Chinese tariffs.

Dec 30:

• The National Park Service suspends services like trash collection and road maintenance, and plans to close certain parks. The parks are losing about $400,000 a day in fees.

January:

• The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau halts approvals for new beer labels, delaying the release of some craft brewers’ products.
• The Smithsonian museums and the National Zoo close their doors.
• The National Gallery of Art closes to the public.

Jan 4:

• The Department of Housing and Urban Development sends letters to 1,500 landlords asking them not to evict residents in housing assistance programs — including those with Section 8 vouchers — for which funding has lapsed.

Jan 11:

• Many federal workers miss their first paycheck. While some earn six-figure salaries, an average employee’s weekly take-home pay is about $500, according to a labor union for government employees.

Upcoming Deadlines

Jan 12:

• Miami International Airport closes a terminal as security screeners have been calling in sick at twice the airport’s normal rate.

Jan 18:

• Federal district courts run out of funds. Civil cases may be suspended or postponed, but criminal cases and other essential work will proceed.

Jan 25

• Federal workers miss another paycheck.

Congress approves back pay — eventually — for furloughed federal employees

The House on Friday approved the measure on a 411-to-7 vote, following Senate passage Thursday under a shortcut procedure called unanimous consent, in which a bill is deemed passed if no member objects.

The measure would apply only to furloughed federal employees. Separate legislation is pending in Congress calling for contractors to similarly pay their lower- and middle-income employees who have been furloughed because of the partial shutdown.

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The 7 Republicans who voted against back pay for furloughed workers

But seven lawmakers — all House Republicans — opposed the measure. Those “no” votes came from:

Reps. Justin Amash (Mich.)
Andy Biggs (Ariz.)
Paul Gosar (Ariz.)
Glen Grothman (Wis.)
Thomas Massie (Ky.)
Chip Roy (Texas)
Ted Yoho (Fla.).

Their main objection is the legislation passed by Congress this week would also guarantee back pay in the event of a future shutdown.

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Government Shutdown Curtails F.D.A. Food Inspections

The Food and Drug Administration has stopped routine food safety inspections of seafood, fruits, vegetables and many other foods at high risk of contamination because of the federal government’s shutdown, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the agency’s commissioner, said on Wednesday.

F.D.A. inspectors normally examine operations at about 160 domestic manufacturing and food processing plants each week. Nearly one-third of them are considered to be at high risk of causing food-borne illnesses. Food-borne diseases in the United States send about 128,000 people to the hospital each year, and kill 3,000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Coast Guard families told they can have garage sales to cope with government shutdown – The Washington Post

Employees of the U.S. Coast Guard who are facing a long U.S. government shutdown just received a suggestion: To get by without pay, consider holding a garage sale, babysitting, dog-walking or serving as a “mystery shopper.”

The tip sheet, titled “Managing your finances during a furlough,” applies to the Coast Guard’s 8,500-person civilian workforce. About 6,400 of them are on indefinite furlough, while 2,100 are working without pay after being identified as essential workers, said Lt. Cmdr. Scott McBride, a service spokesman.

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‘Could you make these guys essential?’: Mortgage industry gets shutdown relief after appeal to senior Treasury officials

Because of the shutdown, the IRS was unable to process a key form that lenders use to confirm borrowers’ incomes before they can grant home loans — a roadblock that threatened to bring the mortgage industry to a halt.

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‘We all have bills. We all have to eat.’ For furloughed federal workers, the first missed paychecks ratchet up anxiety.

With only a few weeks’ worth of cash reserves in the bank, and no end in sight to the war of political attrition between Trump and his Capitol Hill foes, the couple have been lowering the thermostat and skimping at the supermarket, part of their overall belt-tightening.
“Using up what’s in the freezer,” Lisa said.
“Stopped eating out,” said Gordy.
“Keeping the lights off when we’re not in the room.”
“Cable TV might have to go.”
“Paying the minimum on the credit cards.”
“Not driving if we don’t have to.”
“I would love a haircut,” Gordy said, “but that’ll have to wait.”

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Now on Craigslist, Facebook: Household items from furloughed workers trying to make ends meet

A federal worker in Morgantown, W.Va., took to Facebook this week to sell welding tools, left behind by his deceased father-in-law. Another, a die-hard Star Wars fan in Woodbridge, Va., did the same with a life-size copy of Kylo Ren’s lightsaber. A single father in Indiana hosted a sale on eBay with five pages of things found around the house, including Bibles, Nintendo bedsheets and Dr. Seuss neckties.

“I have $24 in cash on me, I don’t use credit cards and I have $2.40 left in my bank account,” Simeone said. “If we miss this upcoming paycheck, I will be completely broke.”

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Over 300 small-business loans a day aren’t happening because of the shutdown

The SBA typically handles almost 200 loans for working capital via the 7(a) loan program and about 120 loans a day for commercial properties through what’s known as the 504 loan program. In total, these two programs alone are dispensing nearly $200 million worth of loans a day to small and midsize U.S. businesses.

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‘There’s no money’: Shutdown freezes HUD funds for low-income senior citizens

More than 200 of the contracts that expired in December are for properties, like San Jose Manor II, that provide rental assistance for the elderly, according to LeadingAge, an association for nonprofit providers of aging services. Known as Section 202, the program houses about 400,000 low-income elderly people as part of HUD’s Section 8 Project-Based Rental Assistance as well as a separate HUD program.

That could mean even fewer options for poor senior citizens. The waiting list for San Jose Manor II Apartments is already one year to one-and-a-half years long, according to Ballard, who said that if residents were forced to leave, they wouldn’t have anywhere else to go. “They would live on the street,” she said. “There’s nothing for them.”

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T.S.A. Agents Refuse to Work During Shutdown, Raising Fears of Airport Turmoil

The partial shutdown of the federal government is starting to affect air travel as a growing number of security agents are refusing to work for no pay.

The nation’s 51,000 airport security agents are among the federal employees who have been ordered to work through the partial shutdown, which began on Dec. 22.

On Friday, they missed their first paycheck since it started, a lapse that their union leaders feared would cause more of them to stop showing up for work or even to quit their jobs.

The agents earn about $35,000 a year, on average, union officials said. “We have people that work from paycheck to paycheck and there’s quite a few of them,” said Vincent R. Castellano, national vice president for the union’s second district, which encompasses the Northeast.