When Jill Hornick woke up on a recent Monday morning, her first thought was that her timecard would be submitted that day for her job with the Social Security Administration in Chicago. But this Monday was different. The federal government was locked in a shutdown, and she received a paycheck for $0. “This is the only income I have,” she said. “And I just started crying. I had a meltdown.” Hornick, 59, is one of 730,000 federal employees working without pay because of the impasse. Another 670,000 federal workers are furloughed without pay, according to data from the Bipartisan Policy Center, a think tank. As the shutdown stretches toward its fifth week, those government employees are confronting an increasingly acute scenario. Their bills are mounting, and there is no clear resolution in sight. Some are turning to side hustles such as delivering food, walking dogs and selling personal items to bring in a bit of income. Others are relying on food banks that have been organized to provide federal workers and contractors with free groceries – efforts that community service providers say reflect food insecurity caused by the shutdown. The widespread anxiety is punctuating what has already been a grueling year for federal workers as the Trump administration has raced to shrink and reshape government, and moved to eliminate hundreds of thousands of jobs. The last shutdown, which came during Trump’s first term, was the longest ever, lasting 34 full days. The current standoff, which began Oct 1, could stretch even longer. There are no negotiations for a deal to reopen government, which Democrats say must include an agreement to extend expiring subsidies for health insurance. The impact of the political paralysis could be seen early Friday morning as hundreds of cars lined a road in Northern Virginia, filled with federal workers and government contractors waiting for boxes of food being distributed by a local non-profit group. It was one of five sites set up in partnership with the Capital Area Food Bank, a hunger relief organization, to distribute groceries in the Washington region, which is home to nearly 20% of the federal workforce. Casey Perez, a mother of five from Maryland who is furloughed from her civilian job at Fort Belvoir, said the last three weeks had been tough. “I don’t know how to get the mortgage paid,” Perez, 34, said as three of her children waited patiently in the back seat of her car. Some federal workers are seeking creative ways to string together enough money to cover their bills. Imelda Avila-Thomas, a furloughed labor department employee in Texas, said she had been going from room to room inside her home to see what she could sell to help make ends meet. One piece of furniture jumped out: a tan pullout sofa that her late mother slept on when she visited. Avila-Thomas said that her mother had died in 2022, and that she had held on to the sofa as she was still processing her death. “I don’t think I was ready to get rid of it,” she said. But she sold it for $40. Under federal law, the government is required to pay back federal workers once funds become available. But Trump has said that may not be the case for everyone. Not all federal workers are going unpaid. Around 830,000 federal employees are still receiving their salaries because their offices are self-funded or there is other money to use, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center. As the shutdown continues, government workers will have to make more tough decisions. Some said that they had called creditors seeking a reprieve. Others said that they were looking to take a loan out of their pension plans.
