canyonwalker | The Government Shutdown Doesn't Affect Me. Yet.

Effective yesterday morning, October 1, the federal government went into shutdown mode because Congress and the president have not been able to agree on a budget to fund it. While this situation may sound alarming— OMG, the federal government has shut down!— it's happened several times before in the current era. (See, for example, Wikipedia article Government Shutdowns in the United States.) And for a lot of people, myself included, there's little or no impact on actual daily life.

I'm not a government employee. Non-essential government employees are furloughed, meaning they're not working during the shutdown. Though I read yesterday that some 75% of all federal employees are deemed essential. So most government workers are still at work.

I don't live in an area where the local economy is heavily dependent on government workers, like next to a big military base or government office. Though my relatives who live near Washington, D.C., where many of their friends are neighbors rely on government salaries, reported in past shutdowns there was little impact on people's spending habits. That's because while government employees are not paid during the shutdown— even the 75% of them deemed essential who still have to work— in the past they've always been paid in arrears, in full, even if they didn't have to work. Edited to add: A bill passed by Congress in 2019, during the previous shutdown, and signed into law by President Trump (in his first term) guarantees pay for all government employees, even those furloughed.

I don't depend directly on federal programs. I don't receive benefit checks. I don't need assistance from people whose jobs might be nonessential. It's a good thing my passport isn't up for renewal soon because, yeah, stuff like that might get delayed. Some national parks are closed... and it's hard to know until you get to the locked gate what's open or closed because them updating their websites is nonessential. And last time a shutdown dragged out for several weeks there were alleged sick-outs among essential employees such as TSA screeners. That could mean delays boarding a flight. But these are small hits that have negligible impact on my life. So far....