White House estimates 3.5M federal workers will go without pay in government shutdown
abcnews.go.com
The White House estimates that 3.5 million federal workers will have to go without pay if the government shuts down. Roughly 2 million of them will be military.
The rough tally comes as House Republicans struggle to push through spending bills that would keep the government open in the new budget year.
Absent a last-minute bipartisan deal, which appears unlikely, federal agencies are expected to curb much of their work and require many employees to work without pay.
In addition to the 2 million military service members, the White House Office of Management and Budget estimates 1.5 million federal civilian employees will go without pay.
About 820,000 of those federal workers will be sent home, or "furloughed."
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Yes, but if you're directly employed by the fed, you will receive back pay. If you receive unemployment pay during that time, you will have to pay it back.
The big issue is people who are employed by a contracting firm and work in federal buildings - they won't receive back pay when they come back.
This is case-specific on the contract side. Sometimes the contract is funded already and the mission critical workers (like military, critical systems IT staff etc.) will continue working.
And for anyone fomenting tears on behalf of the direct federal workers... Please realize that many of the lifers know and plan for this type of shit and even look forward to it. They will get back pay for however long it lasts so it is essentially a multi week paid vacation for them.
A large number of federal workers view this as a benefit of their mealticket.
(Source: worked in Federal contracting for a while)
True, I did simplify quite a bit. My wife is a lifer federal employee and like you said, we're well prepared if the gov't shuts down. Of course we still realize how shit it can be for those who aren't prepared or won't get back pay and don't want that to happen.