The sight was staggering in Prince George's County, Md., home to more than 60,000 federal workers: middle-class professionals lined up for boxes of pasta, protein and produce to feed their families.
After a two-hour wait, Wanda Bright had finally reached the front of the line — just as the first batch of supplies ran out.
The Capital Area Food Bank had started the day with 300 boxes, enough for 150 government employees to receive two boxes each. It turned out that the need was even greater.
Fortunately, reinforcements had been called in, and cheers erupted as a second truck backed into the shopping center parking lot. Bright sighed with relief as volunteers handed over bread and other provisions to help get her family through the week.
"A lot of us are stressed, and it takes a toll on our mental health," says Bright, one of an estimated 700,000 federal workers across the U.S. now furloughed, meaning they are not working at the moment. "Some people can handle this. A lot of people cannot."
For many federal workers, Friday is supposed to be payday. Instead, they are getting nothing. No partial pay. No sign of when their paychecks might resume.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has managed to move money around to ensure that some people get paid, particularly those doing work deemed critical to President Trump's priorities.
"We got the people that we want paid, paid, OK?" Trump said at the White House last week.
1.4 million going without pay
Altogether, about 1.4 million civilian federal employees across the country are going without pay, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center, a think tank in Washington, D.C. Roughly half of them are furloughed. The other half has been deemed essential and so is continuing to work.
For many people in both groups, the lapse in congressional appropriations has brought on new financial strain in a year that has already been tough.
"This whole fiscal year — 2025 — I was worried about my job, worried about getting RIF'd," says Jay, a furloughed worker from the National Institutes of Health, referring to the reductions in force, or layoffs, that have already hit a number of agencies. "It was draining, emotionally draining. Now the reality is setting in when you're not getting checks and you need to provide for your family."
Jay, who asked to be identified by only his first name out of fear of losing his job, carried his two boxes away from the food distribution site in a stroller. He has a 1-year-old and a 5-year-old waiting for him at home.
In Tampa, Fla., Tierra Carter is still going to work, answering calls placed to the Social Security Administration's 1-800 number. Carter, who serves as a union representative with the American Federation of Government Employees, says the lack of a paycheck has forced her to take out loans and seek a hardship withdrawal from her 401(k).
"I kind of feel like I'm in a pool and I'm trying to swim to the top, but every time I get to the middle, I'm getting knocked back down," she says.
Offering help to pay the bills
Many federal workers earn less than $90,000 a year — 43%, according to an analysis of March 2024 government data by the Pew Research Center. Even those earning more could see bills pile up quickly.
Credit unions, where many federal workers do their banking, have started providing some financial relief. By Wednesday, Iowa-based Veridian Credit Union had already approved more than $55,000 in "Government Advance Loans" — short-term, interest-free loans — for 32 members affected by the shutdown. It had also processed 80 no-fee "Delay-a-Pays" for members. Similarly, Denver-based Westerra Credit Union and Redwood Credit Union in Northern California have each already provided nearly $100,000 in short-term, interest-free loans to members, with more applications coming in every day.
In Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia, the Community Services Agency of the Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO, has been providing emergency financial support through its Federal Worker Solidarity Fund since February. But in recent days, requests for help with groceries, rent, mortgage payments and utility bills have soared, says Sig Meilus, the organization's director.
Thursday morning, Meilus woke up to 20 new applications for assistance that had come into her inbox overnight. With no end to the shutdown in sight, she expects the trend to continue.
"Which also means that, unfortunately, our funds are dwindling quickly," she says.
Shutdown begins to impact communities
Because roughly two-thirds of the civilian federal workforce is still working despite the lapse in annual appropriations, the shutdown may not be all that apparent to a lot of Americans.
But the longer it drags on, the more the public will begin to feel its economic effects, says Shai Akabas, vice president of economic policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center.
Already, Akabas says, there might be a grocery store next to a federal building that's not getting as much foot traffic, or a day care that's seeing fewer children show up because their parents are furloughed. Over time, communities that have higher densities of federal workers could see less spending overall.
"Not everybody feels it yet, but it's actually affecting the broader economy," Akabas says.
While Congress passed a law in 2019 ensuring back pay for federal employees after a shutdown ends, Trump suggested recently that furloughed workers shouldn't count on it.
"We're going to see," Trump said a week into the shutdown. "Most of them are going to get back pay, and we're going to try and make sure of that. But some of them are being hurt very badly by the Democrats and they therefore won't qualify."
Trump administration finds ways to pay some federal workers
Across the government, many federal workers are still getting paid as usual during the shutdown. Salaries for some federal employees, including the vast majority of those at the Department of Veterans Affairs, do not come out of appropriations that Congress must approve every year.
In recent weeks, the Trump administration has also engaged in what the director of the White House's Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, called "budgetary twister" in an interview on The Charlie Kirk Show.
Active-duty military personnel got their paychecks on schedule last week, after the Defense Department dipped into its unused research and development funds to find the money.
Some 70,000 law enforcement officers with the Department of Homeland Security are also now being paid from funds allocated to the department in Trump's tax-and-spending bill last summer. Yet many of their own colleagues are not getting paid — and likely won't be until the shutdown is over — creating an unequal playing field among federal employees that grows more slanted as the shutdown continues.
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