Children playing with colorful wooden building blocks. (Getty Images) 

WASHINGTON — Funding for scores of Head Start programs hung in the balance as the government shutdown continued Monday without an end in sight. 

Unless a deal is reached to end the ongoing funding lapse that began Oct. 1, more than 65,000 children in 140 local Head Start programs across 41 states and Puerto Rico will not get their federal grant funding come Nov. 1, according to the National Head Start Association. The federal government spent about $12.3 billion on the program in fiscal 2025.

Community programs that receive Head Start funding have different start dates for when their grants are available. 

Head Start helps fund roughly 1,600 community programs that served more than 790,000 children during the 2023-2024 program year. 

The program is managed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the employees in that agency who would disburse those awards are currently furloughed because of the shutdown.

Six programs serving 6,525 children did not receive a grant award Oct. 1 and are already tapping into outside resources and local funds to stay afloat. If the shutdown continues past Friday, another 134 programs that serve 58,627 children will lose federal grant funding. 

Head Start provides early childhood education, nutritious meals, health screenings and other support services to low-income families. 

It is a discretionary program and subject to congressional approval each year, making it particularly vulnerable to the government shutdown. 

“There’s just so much instability … that this is causing,” Tommy Sheridan, deputy director of the advocacy group the National Head Start Association, told States Newsroom. “And while we’re hopeful and we’re going to be doing everything we possibly can to try to minimize the impact directly on children and families, there is going to be a long-term impact, no matter what, that is felt.” 

Shutdown standoff

The shutdown began Oct. 1, the start of the fiscal year, when Congress failed to appropriate money for federal programs. 

Democrats have voted against bills that would temporarily reopen the government as they ask Republicans to negotiate a fix to expiring tax credits for health insurance premiums purchased on the Affordable Care Act marketplace. Republicans have refused to negotiate while the government is shut down, leading to an ongoing stalemate.

In a statement Monday, Emily Hilliard, a spokesperson for HHS, blamed the impending lack of funds on Democrats. 

“More than 58,000 children are on course to lose access to Head Start funding and programs on November 1 due solely to the Democrat-led government shutdown,” she wrote.

Hilliard added that “the Trump Administration is committed to reopening the government for the American people.”

‘Collateral damage’ 

Sheridan criticized the political landscape that will likely lead to a lack of funding.

“I can’t stress enough — this is purely due to politics,” Sheridan said. “This has nothing to do with Head Start not being an effective program or people in Congress and the administration not supporting Head Start.” 

He pointed to the “strong bipartisan support” the program has received since its launch in 1965. 

“This is just us being collateral damage in a bigger fight that is going to be hurting working families and children,” Sheridan added. 

Sheridan noted that “when programs don’t have access to federal resources, generally speaking, they can try, depending on the size of the program, to stay open for a certain period of time, but they’re going to be basically using other funds, and then would be reimbursing those costs down the road, kind of like an accounting maneuver, to be able to keep their programs running.” 

He added: “That’s why we’re seeing so many programs either close or have to consider closures or things of that kind and why … we are just urging Congress and the administration to stop having children and families be the collateral damage of a political fight.”

Consequences for local Head Start programs

For programs that have to shut down because of the loss of federal funding, Sheridan pointed to several impacts.

Children would lose access to healthy meals and other resources. Families would be without affordable child care options, forcing some to quit their jobs or reduce their work hours. Community members could see economic ripple effects if staff who work in Head Start programs lose their paychecks or their jobs. 

“We also have community partners that we rely on for services, and they rely on us for business — small businesses, contractors, vendors, other small businesses, things like that — but they rely on their Head Start contracts, and if we can’t pay the bills, they’re not going to be able to count on us for what they need as well,” he said. 

Program already reeling

Under President Donald Trump’s administration, the program was already experiencing chaos prior to the government shutdown, including reports of delays in accessing approved grant funding, regional office closures and firings at HHS’ Office of Head Start.

That office also told grant recipients in March that it “will not approve the use of federal funding for any training and technical assistance (TTA) or other program expenditures that promote or take part in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.” 

A federal judge in September temporarily blocked the administration’s directive that aimed to prevent immigrants living in the United States illegally from accessing Head Start programs. 

Meanwhile, Trump’s fiscal 2026 budget request calls for maintaining Head Start funding at its prior fiscal year level of roughly $12.3 billion.

The Senate Appropriations Committee passed its annual bill to fund HHS, including Head Start, back in July and provided $12.4 billion for the program, a roughly $85 million increase.

The corresponding panel in the House also approved its bill to fund HHS in September, aligning with the administration’s request of maintaining funding for Head Start at $12.3 billion in fiscal 2026.  

Sheridan pointed out that the program has operated through challenges before, whether natural disasters, the COVID-19 pandemic, or previous government shutdowns. 

“Our programs are absolutely dedicated, hopeful and are working tirelessly to minimize that impact on children and families, but we cannot operate a program on hope and goodwill alone,” he said. “We need Congress and we need the president to come together to keep our classrooms open and also to ensure that Head Start funding can stay in line with the rising costs that we’ve seen over this last year.” 

A sign with a notice of closure is seen pinned on the fence to the National Zoo on Oct. 12, 2025, in Washington, D.C. . The closure affects all the Smithsonian's 21 museums, its research centers and the National Zoo. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate left for its customary long weekend Thursday afternoon, following a brief three days in session despite the ongoing government shutdown. 

The House remained on an extended break from Capitol Hill, where neither Democrats nor Republicans seemed motivated to talk to each other despite mounting repercussions from the funding lapse.

Federal courts, for example, reported just as the shutdown began Oct. 1, they could use “fee balances and other funds not dependent on a new appropriation” to keep up and running through Friday, Oct. 17. 

“If the shutdown continues after Judiciary funds are exhausted, the courts will then operate under the terms of the Anti-Deficiency Act, which allows work to continue during a lapse in appropriations if it is necessary to support the exercise of Article III judicial powers,” the announcement stated. “Under this scenario, each court and federal defender’s office would determine the staffing resources necessary to support such work.”

A spokesperson for the courts wrote in an email to States Newsroom there were no updates to offer on funding or operations as of Thursday but signaled there could potentially be an announcement Friday. 

Trump spending cuts, layoffs 

The shutdown has had widespread ramifications across all three branches of government, including the Trump administration’s decision to cut spending approved by Congress and lay off thousands of federal employees, though that was temporarily halted by a federal judge this week. 

Federal workers who are categorized as essential will not receive their paychecks until after the shutdown ends. Furloughed employees may never receive the back pay authorized in a 2019 law if the Trump administration reinterprets it, as officials have said they might. 

None of the consequences produced any real sense of urgency this week on Capitol Hill, where West Virginia Republican Sen. Jim Justice organized a birthday party for his dog, or at the White House, where President Donald Trump held a ball for donors to his ballroom and focused on foreign policy. 

Just as they have for the last several weeks, members of Congress and administration officials continued holding separate press conferences and TV news appearances, lambasting their political opponents, none of which will help move the two sides closer together to reopen government. 

Failed vote No. 10

Senators failed for the 10th time to advance the stopgap government spending bill on a 51-45 vote, short of the 60 needed to move forward under the chamber’s legislative filibuster. Republicans control the chamber with 53 seats.

The Senate was also unable to move past a procedural hurdle on the full-year Defense Department funding bill after a 50-44 vote. The Senate Appropriations Committee approved the bill this summer on a broadly bipartisan 26-3 vote. 

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters ahead of the vote that Democrats want some of the other annual appropriations bills added on to create a larger bill, though he didn’t say which of the dozen he prefers. 

“It’s always been unacceptable to Democrats to do the Defense bill without other bills that have so many things that are important to the American people in terms of health care, in terms of housing, in terms of safety,” Schumer said. 

He added later that leaders from both political parties “have always negotiated these appropriations agreements in a bipartisan way. Once again, they’re just going at it alone.” 

Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, appeared to offer a package of bills negotiated between the parties before the vote on the defense bill. 

“We want this to be an open process with an opportunity to add additional bipartisan bills that address vital domestic priorities, including biomedical and scientific research and infrastructure,” Collins said. “And we want members to have a voice in the funding decisions that affect all of our states and constituents back home.”

Stopgap bills in 2025

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said during a floor speech earlier in the day the short-term government funding bill is needed to give lawmakers more time to negotiate final versions of the full-year spending bills. 

“We’re simply asking them to extend current funding bills for a few weeks while we work on full-year appropriations,” Thune said. 

Congress is supposed to work out a bipartisan agreement between the House and Senate on those bills by the start of the fiscal year on Oct. 1, but hasn’t finished on time since the 1990s. 

So every September, once back from their August recess, the House and Senate write a stopgap spending bill that typically keeps the lights on until mid-December. 

Those short-term measures, sometimes called continuing resolutions or CRs, were traditionally negotiated among Republican and Democratic leaders in both chambers until earlier this year. 

House Republicans, bolstered by a sweep in last year’s elections, decided in March to write a six-month stopgap spending bill on their own, after two bipartisan short-term bills were approved earlier in the fiscal year. 

Senate Democrats voiced frustration with the process but ultimately helped Republicans get past a procedural vote that required the support of at least 60 lawmakers, allowing the March stopgap to advance toward a simple majority passage vote. 

House Republicans repeated their previously successful maneuver last month, writing a stopgap spending bill on their own that would fund the government through Nov. 21. 

Senate Democrats, however, changed tactics and have voted repeatedly to block the House-passed stopgap bill from advancing. 

Health care standoff

Democrats maintain that Republican leaders must negotiate to extend the enhanced tax credits that are set to expire at the end of the year for people who buy their health insurance from the Affordable Care Act Marketplace. 

Republican leaders have said publicly over and over that they will, but cannot guarantee Democrats a final agreement will be able to pass both chambers. They also say talks will only begin after the stopgap bill becomes law and the government reopens. 

“Despite the fact we’re only in this position because of Democrats’ poor policy choices, Republicans are ready for that discussion,” Thune said. “But only once we’ve reopened the government.”

Thune also raised concerns over what message it would send for GOP leaders to negotiate during the shutdown, which he said would endorse the use of funding lapses to achieve policy or political goals. 

Shutdowns in history

Republicans forced the last two government shutdowns; the first in 2013 over efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act and the second in 2019 over Trump’s insistence lawmakers approve more funding for the border wall. Both were unsuccessful. 

Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a floor speech Thursday that Republicans drafting the stopgap spending bill on their own is a stark contrast to how things have worked for years and that they can’t expect Democrats to vote for something in which they had no say.  

“For the last month, the Republican leader’s favorite number has been 13. He keeps citing 13 CRs that we passed when I was majority leader. Of course we did,” Schumer said.  

“What he fails to mention — I’m not sure if he forgets, or he’s deliberately trying to ignore it — is that those 13 CRs were the product of bipartisan negotiation, of serious conversation. We had to make changes in those bills when our Republican colleagues suggested it,” he added. “They were in the minority, but they had the right to be heard, a right that has been completely shut out for Democrats under this new Republican majority.”

Schumer warned Republicans about open enrollment for the Affordable Care Act Marketplace beginning on Nov. 1, saying tens of millions of Americans will soon realize what congressional inaction means for their family budgets. 

He said Republicans’ unwillingness to negotiate before the shutdown began or since shows they “either don’t understand it or they’re brutally callous.” 

‘I want to be happy Mike’

House Speaker Mike Johnson said during a Thursday morning press conference that Republicans “have no idea” how the government shutdown will end, and blamed Democrats in the Senate for not voting to advance the stopgap bill. 

House Homeland Security Committee Chair Andrew R. Garbarino of New York said the government shutdown is undermining the day-to-day operations of the Department of Homeland Security.

“This shutdown is making our country less safe,” he said. 

Garbarino said roughly 90% of federal employees at the Department of Homeland Security are required to continue working because they have essential roles such as vetting customs at ports of entry and monitoring air space at airports. 

He said those working without pay include 63,000 U.S. Customs and Border Protection employees; more than 61,000 Transportation Security Administration agents; and 8,000 Secret Service agents. 

Garbarino added that he was grateful Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was using funds from the “One Big Beautiful Bill” to pay the roughly 49,000 Coast Guard personnel. 

In a statement to States Newsroom, DHS said it would be able to continue hiring U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and “deploy law enforcement across the country to make America safe again” due to funding from the “One Big Beautiful Bill.” Amid the government shutdown, the Trump administration has continued its aggressive immigration crackdown.

Johnson expressed his frustration that some Homeland Security employees were working without pay.

“We should not have Border Patrol agents not (being) paid right now because Chuck Schumer wants to play political games to cover his tail,” the Louisiana Republican said. “I don’t like being mad Mike, I want to be happy Mike … but I am so upset about this.”

A sign advising that the Capitol Visitors Center in the U.S. Capitol is closed, in Washington, D.C., is pictured on Oct. 1, 2025. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

This report has been updated.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration may try to interpret a law enacted during his first term in office differently than it did following the last government shutdown, potentially denying back pay to hundreds of thousands of furloughed federal workers. 

The change in stance, outlined in a memo from the Office of Management and Budget that was first reported by Axios on Tuesday and confirmed to States Newsroom by a White House official, would drastically change the stakes of the ongoing funding lapse, which began Oct. 1. 

President Donald Trump didn’t clearly say how he personally views the law during an afternoon press conference in the Oval Office, though he indicated he doesn’t intend to provide back pay to all federal workers. 

“I would say it depends on who we’re talking about,” Trump said. “I can tell you this: the Democrats have put a lot of people in great risk and jeopardy. But it really depends on who you’re talking about. But for the most part we’re going to take care of our people. There are some people that really don’t deserve to be taken care of and we’ll take care of them in a different way.”

Trump said he will likely announce mass layoffs of federal employees in the next week and opened the door to canceling funding approved by Congress if the shutdown persists. 

“I’ll be able to tell you that in four or five days if this keeps going on,” Trump said. “If this keeps going on it’ll be substantial and a lot of those jobs will never come back.”

OPM earlier said workers would receive back pay

Reinterpreting the law would go against guidance the Office of Personnel Management released in late September, which stated that after “the lapse in appropriations has ended, employees who were furloughed as the result of the lapse will receive retroactive pay for those furlough periods.”

During the 35-day shutdown during Trump’s first term, Congress approved a bill titled the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019 that guaranteed back pay for both exempt and furloughed federal workers. Trump signed the legislation into law himself. 

Before the law, Congress typically voted following each funding lapse to ensure back pay for all federal employees. 

The Congressional Budget Office projected 750,000 federal workers would be furloughed in the current shutdown. 

Democrats on Capitol Hill rebuffed the memo on Tuesday, arguing it is another example of Trump attempting to circumvent the law. 

“The letter of the law is as plain as can be—federal workers, including furloughed workers, are entitled to their backpay following a shutdown,” Senate Appropriations ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash., wrote on social media. “Another baseless attempt to try and scare & intimidate workers by an administration run by crooks and cowards.”

Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who represents a considerable number of federal workers, said during a brief interview he doesn’t believe lawmakers need to clarify the law in any way, calling it “crystal clear.” 

“This is a bill that (former) Senator (Ben) Cardin and I introduced back during that shutdown,” Van Hollen said. “And I looked at it again today after the White House comments, and they’re blowing smoke. This is part of their effort to scare. So this is all part of their fearmongering. That’s what it’s about.” 

‘That should turn up the urgency’

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., asked about the memo during a morning press conference, said he hadn’t seen it or spoken with anyone in the White House, but he didn’t seem to take issue with its change of course. 

“I’m sure there will be a lot of discussion about that. But there are legal analysts who think that is not something that government should do,” Johnson said. “If that is true, that should turn up the urgency and the necessity of the Democrats doing the right thing here.” 

Pressed by another reporter about the principle involved with possibly not adhering to the law, Johnson said he hopes that furloughed federal workers do receive their back pay.

“I can tell you the president believes that as well. He and I have talked about this personally. He doesn’t want people to go without back pay,” Johnson said. “And that’s why he pleaded with Chuck Schumer to do the right thing and vote to keep the government open. We don’t want this to happen.” 

Johnson didn’t clarify why — if Trump believes furloughed workers should receive back pay consistent with the 2019 law — the White House budget office prepared a memo stating the opposite.

Johnson’s official House website explains that during a shutdown “federal employees will either be furloughed, or in some cases required to work without pay. Under federal law, employees are entitled to back pay upon the government reopening.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said during an afternoon press conference he expects furloughed workers will receive their back pay once the shutdown ends. 

“I haven’t looked at the memo specifically yet. My assumption is that furloughed workers will get back pay,” Thune said. “But that being said, this is very simple — open up the government and this is a nonissue.”

The Senate has deadlocked five times on a stopgap government funding bill that passed the House in mid-September. The upper chamber is expected to vote at least one more time this week.

Democrats call for negotiations on shutdown

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said during a morning floor speech that Johnson “has become a massive roadblock to progress,” though he didn’t address the possibility of no back pay for furloughed workers. 

“Ending this shutdown will require Donald Trump to step in and push Speaker Johnson to negotiate because without the president’s involvement, Speaker Johnson and MAGA Republicans in the House are increasingly dug in,” Schumer said. 

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries,  a New York Democrat, said during a morning press conference the White House was incorrect in its new interpretation. 

“The law is clear — every single furloughed employee is entitled to pay back. Period. Full stop,” Jeffries said. “The law is clear and we will make sure that that law is followed.”

American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett Kelley wrote in a statement the “frivolous argument that federal employees are not guaranteed backpay under the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act is an obvious misinterpretation of the law. 

“It is also inconsistent with the Trump administration’s own guidance from mere days ago, which clearly and correctly states that furloughed employees will receive retroactive pay for the time they were out of work as quickly as possible once the shutdown is over.”

 Shauneen Miranda and Ariana Figueroa contributed to this report.

The U.S. Capitol is seen behind a barricade on Sept. 30, 2025 in Washington, DC. If lawmakers fail to reach a bipartisan compromise on the funding bill, the federal government shutdown will begin at midnight. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — A government shutdown could have significant economic consequences, though an analysis released Tuesday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said it’s difficult to pinpoint ramifications without knowing the length of a funding lapse or how exactly the Trump administration will try to reshape the federal workforce. 

Director Phillip L. Swagel wrote in a four-page letter the agency projects about 750,000 federal workers would be furloughed, leading to a $400 million impact per day. 

“The number of furloughed employees could vary by the day because some agencies might furlough more employees the longer a shutdown persists and others might recall some initially furloughed employees,” Swagel wrote. 

New plans from the Trump administration to lay off federal employees en masse, he wrote, could significantly change those calculations. 

The economic impacts and ramifications for business activity are hard to predict, he wrote, because it’s not yet clear how exactly the Trump administration will handle a shutdown or how long it will take congressional leaders to broker a stopgap funding agreement. 

The partial government shutdown that began in December 2018 and lasted through January 2019 led to a loss of about $3 billion in gross domestic product that couldn’t be recovered, according to a prior CBO analysis that was referenced in the letter. 

That represented about 0.02% of annual GDP in 2019. 

Swagel wrote the “effects of a government shutdown on business activity are uncertain, and their magnitude would depend on the duration of a shutdown and on decisions made by the Administration. 

“CBO expects that if a government shutdown persisted for several weeks, some private-sector entities would never recover all of the income they lost as a result of the suspension of federal activity.”

CBO conducted the analysis after receiving a request from Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst. 

Thune, Schumer debate shutdown on Senate floor

A government shutdown will begin Wednesday unless congressional leaders broker a stopgap funding agreement before the new fiscal year starts. 

That seemed like a long shot early Tuesday afternoon as Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., engaged in a brief debate on the floor, a rarity. 

Thune said Democrats would have the same leverage on health care issues they have now in mid-November, when the stopgap spending bill that passed the House but stalled in the Senate would expire. 

“They will have another funding cliff they can take advantage of come November the 21st,” Thune said. “This funds the government and protects federal workers and the American people from the hostage-taking that has become, evidently, now the Democratic norm. Even though it’s something they decried not that many years ago.”

Thune told reporters afterward the chamber would likely be out of session for Yom Kippur, which begins shortly before sunset on Wednesday and continues until Thursday night, but would otherwise hold votes during a shutdown.

“We will observe the Jewish holiday, but I would expect additional votes throughout the week,” Thune said. “I mean, we filed last night on a whole new bunch of (nominees) and I would expect additional votes on funding the government.”

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., canceled the House’s schedule for this week and doesn’t plan for that chamber to go back into session until Oct. 6 at the earliest.

Meeting breaks up with no deal

Congressional leaders, including Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, met with President Donald Trump at the White House on Monday, but were unable to make progress toward a stopgap funding agreement.

Schumer said on the Senate floor Tuesday that Democrats need a deal with GOP leaders to extend the enhanced tax credits for people who buy their health insurance on the Affordable Care Act Marketplace, which are set to expire at the end of the year. 

“In a day or two, millions of Americans — millions — are going to get notices that their insurance premiums will rise an average of $400 a month, $5,000 a year,” Schumer said. “A middle-class family can’t afford that. We want to renew those credits, among other things in health care. But renew those credits so that people won’t pay that horrible increase.”

Schumer called Republican assertions that Democrats want immigrants without legal status to have access to federal health care programs, like Medicare and Medicaid, “utter bull.”

“There is no money, not a penny of federal dollars that are going there. So why do they bring this up? Because they’re afraid to talk about the real issue, which is health care for American citizens, health care for people who need the health care and can’t afford these premiums,” Schumer said.

Without a new funding law before the start of the fiscal year at 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday, the government will begin shutting down.

The ramifications will be significantly broader than the 35-day shutdown that took place during Trump’s first term, when five of the dozen full-year government spending bills had become law.

That isn’t the case this time around and a shutdown is expected to affect every department and agency to varying degrees.

‘They’re taking a risk’

White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought has also called on Trump administration officials to implement mass layoffs during a prolonged funding lapse.

Trump said during a press conference in the Oval Office on Tuesday that he didn’t want a shutdown but that his administration might take sweeping action to restructure the federal government if one does begin. 

“We can do things during the shutdown that are irreversible, that are bad for them and irreversible by them, like cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like,” Trump said, referring to Democrats. “So they’re taking a risk by having a shutdown, because because of the shutdown, we can do things medically and other ways, including benefits.”

A U.S. Department of Education employee leaves the building with their belongings on March 20, 2025 in Washington, D.C., amid mass layoffs.  (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration began posting plans over the weekend that detail how hundreds of thousands of federal workers will be furloughed during a government shutdown, while others will keep working without being paid. 

The updated guidance gives the clearest picture yet into how President Donald Trump and White House budget director Russ Vought hope to reduce the size and scope of government when given increased authority over the federal workforce during a funding lapse. 

A shutdown will begin Wednesday unless Republicans and Democrats in Congress reach agreement on a stopgap spending bill. Congressional leaders were set to meet Monday afternoon with Trump, but it was unclear if any agreement would result that would avert a shutdown.

The Defense Department’s plan shows it would keep about 406,500 of its 741,500 civilian employees working without pay during the shutdown, with the remaining going on furlough. 

The nearly 2.1 million military personnel housed within the department would continue to work throughout a shutdown but would not be paid until after it ends. 

The plan says the Defense Department believes operations to secure the U.S. southern border, Middle East operations, Golden Dome for America defense system, depot maintenance, shipbuilding and critical munitions are the “highest priorities” in the event of a shutdown. 

Medical and dental services, including private sector care under the TRICARE health care program, would largely continue at the Defense Department, though “(e)lective surgery and other routine/elective procedures in DoW medical and dental facilities are generally not excepted activities, unless the deferral or delay of such procedures would impact personnel readiness or deployability.”

Thousands of workers to be sent home from HHS

The Health and Human Services Department plans to furlough about 32,500 of its nearly 80,000 employees during a shutdown. 

The various components of HHS — including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Food and Drug Administration, and National Institutes of Health — have individual plans for a shutdown. 

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services plans to retain 3,311, or 53%, of its employees during a shutdown and “will maintain the staff necessary to make payments to eligible states for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).”

The CDC plans to have 4,891, or 35.88%, of its employees as well as those at the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry keep working. 

The contingency plans says that “(r)esponses to urgent disease outbreaks and continuing efforts to support the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), World Trade Center (WTC) Health Program, the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA), and the Vaccines for Children (VFC) program” would continue during a shutdown. 

The CDC would not be able to undertake several other activities, including providing “guidance to state and local health departments implementing programs to protect the public’s health (e.g., opioid overdose prevention, HIV prevention, diabetes prevention).”

Departments with plans

Here is a list of the departments that have posted updated contingency plans in September:

• Defense Department contingency plan
• Education Department contingency plan
• Health and Human Services contingency plan
• Homeland Security Department contingency plan
• Labor Department contingency plan
• Justice Department contingency plan
• Social Security Administration contingency plan
• Treasury Department contingency plan

Here is a list of the departments that hadn’t posted updated contingency plans as of Monday afternoon:

• Agriculture Department contingency plan
• Commerce Department contingency plan
• Energy Department contingency plan
• Housing and Urban Development contingency plan
• Interior Department contingency plan
• State Department contingency plan
• Transportation Department contingency plan
• Veterans Affairs Department contingency plan

States Newsroom’s Washington, D.C. Bureau reached out to the  departments that didn’t have contingency plans posted to ask when those might become public.

A spokesperson for the USDA wrote in an email the department “is prepared for all contingencies regarding Department operations, including critical services and supports.” 

A State Department spokesperson said leadership “is undergoing all necessary planning efforts to sustain critical missions.”

Federal employees who work  without pay will be paid after the shutdown concludes. 

According to the Office of Personnel Management — the executive branch’s chief human resources agency — “after the lapse in appropriations has ended, employees who were furloughed as the result of the lapse will receive retroactive pay for those furlough periods.” 

The Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019 requires furloughed government employees to receive back pay as a result of a government shutdown. 

That law does not apply to federal contractors, who face uncertainty in getting paid during a shutdown. 

Ashley Murray, Ariana Figueroa, Shauneen Miranda and Jacob Fischler contributed to this report.