US shutdown: Trump threatens mass layoffs
Al Jazeera :
A United States federal government shutdown started at midnight local time on Wednesday.
The shutdown will temporarily halt some US government services and put the salaries of hundreds of thousands of government employees on hold.
President Donald Trump has threatened to use the funding lapse to implement mass layoffs of government workers.
The shutdown comes after Republicans and Democrats in Congress failed to reach an agreement on a spending bill.
The main disagreement was over healthcare spending including continued funding for the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.
Republicans control both chambers of Congress, but failed to gather consensus to pass their bill laying out funding for government operations until November 21. Without this bill, the government cannot function.
Democrats refused to support the bill unless Republicans reverse recent cuts to Medicaid enacted under Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill in July. Democrats proposed alternative solutions to the bill, but these were rejected by the Republicans. Congress was left deadlocked.
When the government shuts down, agencies must “furlough” – suspend or discharge – their “non-excepted” – or non-essential – employees.
These furloughed employees receive no pay for the duration of the shutdown. Once the government resumes operations, most will receive back pay, thanks to a 2019 bill passed by Congress enshrining this into law.
That law makes no mention of contract staff, however, meaning cleaning staff and other contractors working in affected government departments and agencies will only be paid if their contracting firm has budgeted for this.
“Excepted” employees are defined as those “who protect life and property”. These essential workers continue in their jobs during the shutdown but won’t be paid until the shutdown ends.
Get instant alerts and updates based on your interests. Be the first to know when big stories happen.
Each agency has already been required to submit its own staffing plan in the event of a government shutdown.
The funding lapse could lead to approximately 750,000 federal employees being furloughed each day of the shutdown, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). This would result in a daily loss of about $400m in wages, it said.
Many of these people may not return to their jobs, however. While the US government has faced dozens of shutdowns before the current one – and federal employees have been furloughed – the White House instructed government agencies to prepare for large-scale layoffs of federal workers in this case, via a memo from the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on September 24.