What happens if America’s government shuts down this weekend?

ON SEPTEMBER 26TH American lawmakers returned to Washington, DC, with yet another government shutdown looming. The federal fiscal year begins on October 1st, but Congress has yet to appropriate the funding needed to keep the government running. The Senate has approved a bi-partisan bill that would prevent a shutdown until November 17th. But Kevin McCarthy, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, does not seem likely to convince hard-right members of his party to vote for stopgap funding. On September 22nd the White House ordered federal agencies to prepare for what would be their fourth shutdown in a decade. What happens when America’s government shuts down?

Parts of it will keep running. Hospitals run by the Veterans’ Affairs Department, which provide care for millions of people, remain open. Post is delivered: the United States Postal Service is funded by revenue from stamps and services rather than appropriated tax dollars. Police, members of the armed forces, air-traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration employees who screen passengers at airports all keep working. But, like federal workers who get “furloughed” (ie, told not to come into work), they do not get paid. After the last shutdown, which began on December 22nd 2018 and lasted for 35 days, Congress passed a law guaranteeing back pay for furloughed workers, who then amounted to 800,000 of the 2.1m non-postal federal workforce. But extended shutdowns will still strain federal workers’ pocketbooks.