Print PDF

From ThinkProgress:

Come midnight on Tuesday, if Congress doesn’t pass a continuing resolution that would fund the government, it will shut down until one can be passed. For federal workers, this means either facing a furlough or being forced to go to work without pay until the government is funded again. Close to a million federal workers who are deemed to be nonessential could be furloughed, and while they were paid back wages the last time the government shut down and reopened, there is no guarantee.

Jenny Brown, a tax examiner with the Internal Revenue Service, has already gone through three furlough days this year that cost her $200 each on top of 27 months of a pay freeze. Now she faces the possibility of more furlough days if the government shuts down. Meanwhile, she and her coworkers just found out that their health insurance premiums will be going up 3.7 percent. “Financially it hurts me,” she told ThinkProgress. If she is indeed furloughed, “I will have to change my spending” to be able to pay her bills, she said. “I won’t be doing anything extra.”

Her coworkers are also watching the news apprehensively. “We’re all just middle class employees trying to get by payday to payday.” Her coworkers are “scared to death” and frustrated that they will be kept from doing their work, which helps bring in money for the government and reduce the deficit. “Nobody knows whether to get up and go to work in the morning or not and that’s a scary feeling,” she said. “I’ll be up until midnight watching TV, trying to figure this all out.”

Dennis Demay, who works in the Department of Labor, is one of about 1,400 department employees who will be furloughed come Tuesday morning if the government shuts down. “I’ve got bills like everybody else,” he told ThinkProgress. On top of potentially missing out on paychecks for as long as the government is closed, he and his coworkers haven’t gotten a pay raise in three years while insurance premiums and other costs have risen. “I’m taking home less money than I did in 2011,” he said. “I think a pretty accurate description of how I feel is pissed off,” he added.

Beyond financial concerns, the uncertainty of just not knowing whether they’ll be showing up for work on Tuesday has been wearing on his team. “You had worry, you had anxiety,” he said. “I think today it’s angry. People are tired of it.” The emotional distress is impacting people’s productivity at work and the possibility of a shutdown is even blocking some work from getting done. Some coworkers have hesitated to set up appointments for this week in case no one comes to work. Demay himself spent all of Monday dealing with the shutdown and spent most of his time the past couple of weeks on it too.

(11)