Government Shutdown—Laid Off or Working Without Pay

Oct 27, 2025

In the congressional stalemate that has resulted in no new federal budget, heads have rolled. But they are not the heads of the politicians who sit in the Senate and the House. They are the heads of ordinary people, 1.4 million federal employees who find themselves without a paycheck as of October 24^th.

They include an estimated 670,000 federal employees furloughed from agencies, like the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Veterans Affairs. And an estimated 730,000 deemed essential who are continuing to work without pay, who include TSA workers, air traffic controllers, and workers in the Social Security Administration.

Today, many of these workers find themselves lining up for food at food banks that are already stretched, because this economy has forced many workers to compensate for what their pay doesn’t cover—like rising food costs.

And if the shutdown continues through December 1, roughly 4.5 million paychecks will be withheld from federal civilian workers.

This shutdown is impacting regular people, not only federal workers who aren’t getting paid, but also people in the communities that depend on them—the grocery stores, the daycare centers, the gas stations….

And all the while, Republican and Democratic Party politicians play games, blaming each other for the stalemate, and all acting like there isn’t enough money in the federal government to pay for everything and there have to be cuts.

Lies! Take the money from the salaries and perks of Congressmen who continue to serve the interests of weapons systems contractors, the war machine and billionaires.

Take it from the obscene one trillion dollar a year military budget.

Take it from the billions of dollars that are being spent on 70,000 ICE agents let loose to terrorize the population on the streets of major cities.