TSA Workers and Travelers Pay the Price

Mar 30, 2026

Because of another government shutdown, TSA workers were not getting paid, and many travelers were stuck in frustrating long lines at airports. All this misery and chaos was the result of politicians playing political games.

The Democrats saw that many people around the country were outraged by the goon squad tactics used by ICE, and they tried to claim that anger for themselves. The Democrats said they would refuse to pass a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) unless reforms were made to how ICE operates.

But stopping DHS funding didn’t really affect ICE. Both ICE and TSA are part of DHS. But ICE was already funded way into the future with billions from Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill”, while TSA wasn’t.

So, while ICE agents continued to get paid and continued their domestic terrorism, the money for TSA workers’ paychecks stopped immediately.

For their part, Trump and the Republicans said that they were happy with what ICE was doing and they would not agree to the changes that the Democrats wanted. They shrugged off the shutdown and blamed the suffering of TSA workers and travelers on the Democrats.

After six weeks of this chaos, Trump finally signed an executive order to pay TSA workers. Which raises the question—if Trump had the authority to pay the TSA workers, why didn’t he just do that from Day One? Obviously, the suffering caused by this second government shutdown in the last 6 months was not of any concern to Trump and his fellow politicians.

Just as in the government shutdown last October, the TSA workers paid the biggest price, going weeks with no pay this time.

TSA workers were already very low-paid. The starting pay for TSA workers is as low as 15 dollars an hour. Most veteran workers are making less than 27 dollars an hour, meaning these supposedly essential workers are living paycheck to paycheck. So, when the government shutdown stopped their pay again, the TSA workers faced an immediate crisis.

Across the country, over 500 TSA workers quit their jobs to find another job. Several thousand other TSA workers called off work, either because they had to work another job to tide them over, or because they couldn’t afford to buy gas to get them to work.

With so many TSA agents not at work, it led to extremely long lines at some airports, getting through the security checkpoints. There were lines of four hours and more at airports in Atlanta, Houston, Baltimore and elsewhere. Many people even missed their flights because of the lines.

Of course, Trump and the other politicians had no such problems. They continued to get paid. And they didn’t have to worry about long airport lines because they were flying on their private jets or getting special treatment to get on their flights.

For the politicians of the two parties, workers not getting paid and misery for travelers is just another opportunity for political posturing.