Agencies funded by two "minibus" appropriations bills passed in September 2018 were not affected by the shutdown. As only about a quarter of the government was shut down, many people who are not federal employees did not fully realize the effects of the shutdown.
Agencies According to and , these were the affected agencies: •
Department of State •
Department of the Treasury •
Department of Justice • Most of the
Department of the Interior •
Department of Agriculture •
Department of Commerce •
Department of Housing and Urban Development •
Department of Transportation •
Department of Homeland Security • Some
Department of Health and Human Services agencies •
Food and Drug Administration •
Indian Health Service •
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry •
Superfund Research Program •
Executive Office of the President • Most
independent agencies •
Judicial Branch Unaffected agencies include, according to and : •
Department of Defense •
Department of Labor • Most of the Department of Health and Human Services •
Department of Energy •
Department of Education •
Department of Veterans Affairs • Some Department of the Interior agencies •
Bureau of Reclamation •
Central Utah Project •
District of Columbia Jobs affected included staff throughout the United States, not just DC area employees.
FBI agents,
federal corrections officers,
FDA inspectors,
NASA employees,
TSA staff,
Border Patrol staff and
CBP officers,
census staff,
National Park Service staff, members of the
Coast Guard, and
Federal Aviation Administration air traffic controllers either worked without pay or were furloughed, with increasing numbers of unpaid essential employees failing to show up for work. On January 11, 800,000 workers for agencies shutdown or furloughed missed their first paycheck. Federal workers normally receive pay on
federal holidays, which include
Christmas,
New Year's Day and potentially
Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The shutdown affected the employees' entitlement to paid holidays due to the shutdown.
Unemployment assistance to federal workers furloughed under the government shutdown varied by locality. Only non-reporting workers were eligible for assistance, whereas furloughed workers who still reported to work were not. Workers who received unemployment assistance were required pay it back after the shut down ended and they received backpay. Some furloughed workers sought other employment opportunities while they were idled. However, external employment must meet agency-specific ethics guidelines, and mandatory reviews of external employment were also curtailed as most ethics officials were also furloughed. Federal employees were not able to use vacation or sick leave during the shutdown so scheduled holiday vacation time either became unpaid if the worker was deemed non-essential or was cancelled if the worker was deemed essential. In many cases unused leave over a certain threshold expired at year-end, but employees who had leave scheduled in advance of the shutdown did not have "use or lose" leave balances deducted from their accrued leave. Many furloughed employees took to
crowd-funding campaigns to raise cash to replace missed paychecks, but these types of solicitations also run afoul of government ethics rules. As furloughed federal workers and their families shared stories of their hardships, such as not being able to meet rent or mortgage payments and missed bills, the hashtag "#ShutdownStories" went viral on social media. The federal government's
Office of Personnel Management (OPM) responded by publishing sample letters that employees could send to their creditors. One read, in part, "I am a Federal employee who has recently been furloughed due to a lack of funding of my agency. Because of this, my income has been severely cut and I am unable to pay the entire cost of my mortgage, along with my other expenses." Other federal workers reached out to other news outlets to share stories about having to stretch their budgets and the impact of the shutdown on their families. In addition to being unable to meet rent or pay bills, many federal workers around the country were unable to pay for groceries and turned to
food banks. One federal prison guard in Louisiana attempted suicide after posting about the financial pressures of the shutdown on Facebook. The OPM also suggested that employees who had landlords write: "I would like to discuss with you the possibility of trading my services to perform maintenance (e.g. painting, carpentry work) in exchange for partial rent payments" and suggested those who lacked funds to pay bills should hire personal attorneys to assist them. Other organizations also posted advice on how to "find supplemental income"; the Coast Guard suggested that Coast Guard members "have a garage sale, offer to watch children, walk pets or house sit" while furloughed. On January 4,
The Washington Post reported that because the shutdown was triggered by the failure to enact spending bills that continued a federal government pay freeze, hundreds of senior Trump administration political appointees would receive a roughly $10,000 pay raise the following day. White House press secretary
Sarah Sanders said the pending pay raise was an "unnecessary byproduct of the shutdown". On January 10, the Senate approved by unanimous consent a bill (S.24, the
Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019) providing that furloughed federal employees would receive back pay for the period of the furlough once appropriations were restored; the bill was approved the next day by the House on a vote of 411–7. Trump signed the bill into law on January 16.
On Native Americans Native American tribes were not paid for
treaties negotiated with the United States government. These treaties specified that the federal government must provide funding for health clinics, employee salaries, education, infrastructure and other services, which were not paid during the shutdown. Native lands are "owned, managed and maintained by the federal government". Native Americans who receive a
per capita check for profits from oil and gas sales from tribal land did not receive check for the month of February. Roads were not plowed on tribal land, and some areas received significant snowfall. This caused people of the
Navajo Nation to become trapped inside their homes. Food services, which fed 90,000 Native Americans in 2017, were halted. During the shutdown, the Coast Guard continued to engage in patrolling the American coastline and carrying out overseas missions in locations such as the
Persian Gulf along with the Navy and in the
Caribbean. Other issues arose in the payment processes for Coast Guard members
Tricare Health and Dental Program payments, although the individuals were still covered. Military schools, such as the
Coast Guard Academy and the
National War College, lost funding due to the shutdown and the schools had to work to find funds to pay professors. Although the Department of Defense was not shut down, the February 4, 2019, date for release of the Pentagon's 2020 budget was delayed by at least one month. This had repercussions on the interim period which is usually used by Pentagon planners for adjustments before the 2020 fiscal year which will begin in October 2019. The White House Office of Management and Budget, which oversees the Pentagon request, was shut down when the Pentagon budget arrived in December, and remained inactive, so no work was done on the budget. so any funds which might possibly be intended for additional projects elsewhere along the border must be obligated by September 30, 2019, in order not to affect the known corridors. Otherwise appropriations above the $85 million not yet obligated for additional interdiction border projects will have to be approved by additional Congressional appropriations, to reach the $2 billion target. That reduced GDP by over $2.8 billion in the Washington DC area alone.
Fitch Ratings warned that an extended shutdown might lead to a downgrade in the U.S.'s Triple-A
credit rating if lawmakers were unable to pass a budget or manage the
debt ceiling. That in turn would make borrowing more costly for companies and American households, because it is the benchmark for many other lines of credit. Between 800,000 federal government employees and some 4 million federal contractors, the shutdown directly affected nearly 3% of the
U.S. labor force; in a typical recession, unemployment increases 2–4%. The reduction in spending by those households combined with the reduction of government services could have
macroeconomic results similar to a typical recession. The shutdown had an adverse effect on the budgets of state and local governments, as states covered some federal services (particularly the most vulnerable) during the shutdown. By mid-January 2019, the White House
Council of Economic Advisors estimated that each week of the shutdown reduced GDP growth by 0.1 percentage points, the equivalent of 1.2 points per quarter. CEA chairman Kevin Hassett later acknowledged that GDP growth could decline to zero in the first quarter of 2019 if the shutdown lasted the entire quarter.
Taxes As tax season began in the United States on January 28, some 46,000
Internal Revenue Service workers were called back to work to ensure tax refunds and returns were not affected by the shutdown. The recalled workers allowed the department to continue operations that were automatic and those deemed necessary for the safety of human life or protection of government property, such as processing electronic returns, returns with payments, mailing tax forms, appeals, criminal law enforcement investigations and technical support.
Food stamps, inspections, and school lunches During the shutdown, 95% of federal staff for the
USDA's
Food and Nutrition Services were furloughed. The
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the food-stamp program, could be funded through a $3 billion contingency fund appropriated by Congress in 2018; if the shutdown had continued through March 2019, those funds would have been exhausted, leaving some 38 million Americans without food stamps and endangering
food security. Concerns were raised that continuation of the shutdown could delay the issuance of some $140 billion in
tax refunds from the
Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Around January 14, "high-risk" food inspections resumed. As of January 22, 2019, 46 percent of the FDA were working, though 20 percent of them were working without pay. Food safety attorney,
Bill Marler, advocated against eating "fresh, uncooked products on the market place". Meat and some egg products are inspected by the USDA's
Food Safety and Inspection Service. Federal legislation required those inspectors to remain working without pay. Most schools affected were in high-poverty areas, and depended on federally funded lunch programs, such as the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) a
federal grant established by the
Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 and operated through the
Department of Agriculture. Some 22 million students in nearly 100,000 schools received school meals through that operation.
National parks and capital museums under shutdown under shutdown on January 3 As with the January 2018 shutdown,
national parks were expected to be open to the extent practical, though there would be no staff and buildings would be closed. The shutdown affected national parks unevenly, some were accessible with bare-bones staffing levels, some operated with money from states or charitable groups, and others were locked off. Diane Regas, president and chief executive of the
Trust for Public Land, called upon Trump to close all national parks to protect the public: by the third week of the shutdown, three people had died in national parks. This number was reported as being within 'usual' levels. At
Yosemite National Park, on January 4, 2019, a death from a fall went unreported for a week. By January 1, 2019, the problems of neglected trash pileup, overflowing public toilets, and access to first aid were repeated across the Park system. Other issues that arose due to the shutdown included illegal campsites, protected agriculture being damaged, damaging of government property and trespassing on foot and by vehicle. as it did during the January 2018 shutdown. Arizona and Utah were able to keep
Grand Canyon National Park,
Zion National Park,
Arches National Park, and
Bryce Canyon National Park open and provided services including public restrooms, shuttles and trash collection. Utah's funding included visitor centers. The sites closed outright in the southwest alone included
Bandelier National Monument and
Valles Caldera National Preserve in northern
New Mexico,
White Sands National Monument in southern New Mexico,
Petrified Forest National Park in northern Arizona and
Casa Grande Ruins National Monument in south-central Arizona. Access to major parts of Sequoia and Kings Canyon parks were closed, and at
Joshua Tree National Park, the administration policy of leaving parks open to visitors despite the staff furloughs resulted in park damage, including the toppling of protected trees. In Texas,
Big Bend National Park had no visitor services, such as restrooms. Some trailheads were closed. Regulations continued to be enforced, as the park remained open. Visitors were reminded to remove their own trash and toilet paper.
Channel Islands National Park remained open to public access, although services normally provided by the national park service were instead provided by Island Packers Cruises, the company normally in charge of ferries to the islands. website shutdown message The
National Archives and Records Administration closed immediately on December 22, 2018. The
Library of Congress, the
U.S. Botanic Garden, the
Capitol Visitor Center, and the
U.S. Capitol Building remained open as they were funded by the 2019 Legislative Branch appropriations bill. The following day, the
National Gallery of Art was closed. The National Zoo also closed on January 3, 2019. On January 5, 2019, acting Interior Secretary
David Bernhardt directed the diversion of fee revenue defined by the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act to be used to fund minimal maintenance activities so as to preserve access to highly visited parks.
Airspace and aviation workers According to a January 12, 2019, article in
The Economist, on January 11, the
Transportation Security Administration (TSA) was unable to pay its workers who had not been paid since December 22; 55% more of them called in sick than in January 2018. As the air traffic controllers were deemed essential employees, they were required to work without pay. The
National Air Traffic Controllers Association, the union that represents air traffic controllers, filed a lawsuit against the federal government for the shutdown on January 11, 2019, claiming that requiring 16,000 air traffic controllers to work without being paid violated their constitutional rights and federal minimum wage law. That was the third lawsuit filed against the federal government since the beginning of the shutdown. Airline and aircraft safety inspectors, on the other hand, were deemed nonessential and furloughed. A news report on January 12, 2019, stated that the Federal Aviation Administration had returned 500 furloughed safety inspectors back to work and would return more to work in the following weeks. As the airline and aircraft safety inspectors were furloughed, the certification process of the
Airbus A220 in the U.S. was stalled.
Delta Air Lines was forced to delay the launch of the new aircraft, and to use other models of aircraft to serve those routes that was supposed to be served with A220. Many TSA employees also called out sick, most of them because they were trying to find other jobs that would provide immediate paychecks. The shutdown initially prevented the
National Transportation Safety Board from assisting the Mexican government's investigation of the
2018 Puebla helicopter crash that killed a state governor and senator; an exception allowed the NTSB to assist with the Mexican government in the investigation along with the
Transportation Safety Board of Canada. The NTSB also had to delay several investigations until the government reopened and only continued investigations into accidents that were considered the most serious. Issues in receiving certification and oversight from the FAA led to a month-long delay in the commencement of passenger service at
Paine Field in
Everett, Washington. As the shutdown continued into its fourth week, the unions representing airline pilots, flight attendants and air traffic controllers issued a statement asserting, "we cannot even calculate the level of risk currently at play" because of the shutdown.
On airports The
Philadelphia International Airport launched food and item donations for federal employees who were affected by the shutdown. The
Miami International Airport and the
George Bush International Airport closed down
terminals due to a shortage of TSA workers. On January 25, flights destined for
LaGuardia Airport in
New York were halted to a groundstop by
FAA officials due to staffing shortages directly as a result of the shutdown. As a result, several flights to and from neighboring airports in the Northeast, specifically
Philadelphia and
Newark, suffered significant delays of their own. Soon after that, appropriations passed and the government reopened. The shutdown delayed software updates to the
Boeing 737 MAX airplane which may have caused the crash of
Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302.
Judiciary and law enforcement During the shutdown, court-appointed private lawyers who represent indigent defendants worked without pay. The
Federal Judiciary initially had a goal of sustaining paid operations through January 18, 2019. It said it would run out of money to sustain court operations no earlier than January 25, but perhaps as late as February 1. The judiciary had 33,000 employees nationwide.
Investigation and enforcement . Agents of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) revealed in a report released on January 22, 2019, by the
FBI Agents Association, that several different investigations were compromised by the shutdown. The report was called "Voices from the Field" and was 72 pages long. FBI agents were unable to pay
Confidential Human Sources which risks losing that informant permanently. DHS was also unable to inspect
Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities during the shutdown to ensure that immigrants were being held in facilities appropriately. During the shutdown, the federal government's
e-Verify system—a system for employers to check the eligibility of their employees to work in the United States—was halted. During the shutdown, a wave of
Domain Name System (DNS) attacks on government sites was detected by Homeland Security. The attacks were serious because these Internet sites could be hijacked.
Other agencies site shutdown message Official websites for agencies were rendered insecure or inaccessible through the shutdown, as the expired
digital certificates were not renewed. On January 23, DHS asked all government agencies to secure their
DNS records; however, many agencies were not able to respond quickly to this request. Executive and legislative affairs of the
local government of the District of Columbia continued operating through the shutdown, due to a provision previously enacted as part of the
Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2017. The District's local court system, including the
Superior Court of the District of Columbia and the
District of Columbia Court of Appeals, are part of the federal judiciary. Thus, they were partially shut down, preventing District residents from accessing services such as marriage licensing. The District of Columbia government said it would take over trash collection and snow plowing operations for National Park Service facilities in Washington. The shutdown also interfered with the response to the
2018 Sunda Strait tsunami, as the
U.S. Embassy in Jakarta's Twitter account was unable to tweet updates, and the
United States Geological Survey was unable to provide data on the tsunami. The American weather model, the
GFS, suffered a significant drop in forecast quality when a data format change during the shutdown prevented certain weather data from being recognized by the GFS, and the shutdown prevented the bug from being corrected. By mid-day Thursday, January 3, 2019, the
FCC had suspended operations. FCC Chairman
Ajit Pai canceled his trip to the
Consumer Electronics Show. The FTC also suspended certain online operations. The EPA and Department of Energy's
Energy Star website was not available for the duration of the shutdown. Makers of alcoholic beverages were unable to receive approval from the
Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau for new labels and recipes during the shutdown. Based on the recalculation of their operating reserves, the
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) would have had to cease patent operations in the second week of February. A cadre of personnel was allocated to continue receiving patent applications, receive payments, and maintain the IT infrastructure. Even though the USPTO is self-funded, a Congressional appropriation is required to permit the USPTO to spend money. The pipeline of patent applications at the time took 15.8 months for a response from an examiner.
White House The White House residence staff who stage public receptions were among those furloughed, with a minimal staff continuing to work unpaid for the first family. In the midst of the shutdown Trump invited the
Clemson Tigers football team to a White House dinner reception on January 14 in recognition of their
College Football Playoff National Championship win. On the morning of the reception Trump announced that he intended to serve fast food hamburgers and pizza to the team, a remark that some commentators interpreted as a joke. That evening Trump welcomed the team in the
State Dining Room with a buffet of fast food and pizza from McDonald's, Wendy's and other restaurant chains, which he stated that he had paid for personally. Trump served fast food to other visiting athletes later that year, after the shutdown had ended. == Reactions ==