In a significant turn of events, an estimated 750,000 federal employees are currently furloughed due to the first federal government shutdown since 2018. This shutdown has left many employees “on edge for months,” as noted by James Kirwan, a labor attorney working within a government agency. The situation is further exacerbated by threats from the Trump administration to implement sweeping cuts to federal employee ranks.
Government shutdowns bring widespread disruption not only to essential government services but also profoundly affect the lives and livelihoods of the dedicated staff who work tirelessly to deliver these services. Claire Babineaux-Fontenot, CEO of the Feeding America network of food banks, has expressed concern that “many people” in the US are “a single missed paycheck” away from needing to rely on food banks for support. She emphasized that “a prolonged shutdown will deepen the strain, leading more families to seek assistance at a time when food banks are already stretched thin due to sustained high demand.”
According to Kirwan, the shutdown “hurts federal workers in many ways.” He explained, “We want to be working. We want to be serving the public.” During these shutdowns, many federal employees, particularly those earning less than $100,000 annually, are often forced to dip into their savings, rack up credit card debt, or take out loans to survive until they receive back pay when the government reopens. “This situation doesn’t even consider the emotional and psychological harm,” Kirwan added. “We are federal workers because we care deeply about the federal government and serving our constituents.”
The fear of job loss compounds the stress of an already difficult situation. Kirwan highlighted, “Then you add in the fear that we might be fired.” The Trump administration has faced substantial criticism for instructing federal agencies to prepare for mass-scale firings in the event of a government shutdown. Earlier this week, the President hinted at using the shutdown as an opportunity to “get rid of a lot of things we didn’t want.”
This week has already seen the largest mass resignation in US history, with over 100,000 federal workers poised to formally quit as part of the latest wave of the administration’s deferred resignation program. Amid this uncertainty, employees are left wondering if this shutdown will lead to temporary furloughs or set the stage for permanent job loss.
A memo obtained by the Guardian revealed that the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is implementing a “reduction in force” (RIF) program, marking the first agency to announce layoffs. “Approximately one percent of the USPTO workforce will be affected by this RIF,” stated Valencia Martin Wallace, the acting commissioner for the USPTO, in a communication to employees.
At the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), only about 1,700 out of 15,000 employees will continue working during the shutdown. “The workers who do the majority of the frontline work will be furloughed and potentially RIF’ed,” noted Justin Chen, an environmental engineer and president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Council 238, which represents thousands of EPA workers. “We may be recalled for emergencies, but the workers who prevent those emergencies won’t be working.”
Even those who remain employed during the shutdown are bracing for possible layoffs. Colin Smalley, president of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers Local 777, representing 300 workers at the US Army Corps of Engineers in Chicago, remarked, “We find ourselves as federal employees facing a level of concern, as our livelihoods are being used as a pawn in this standoff between Donald Trump and the oligarchs against the working class.” He expressed that the situation is being manipulated to extract significant changes at the expense of the vital public services that federal workers provide.
The Trump administration forecasts that it will cut the federal workforce by approximately 300,000 workers by the end of the year. These cuts have not yet reflected in monthly jobs report data, which will not be released due to the shutdown. As of August, federal employment has already decreased by 97,000 jobs. The previous shutdown, which lasted 35 days from December 2018 to January 2019, cost the US economy an estimated $11 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Kirwan asserted that since Trump took office, the federal government has effectively been operating under a partial shutdown, with a significant portion of the federal workforce removed and various agencies dismantled. “We do not want a shutdown, but we must stand against further harms to our programs,” he stated. “More harm is occurring each month to critical programs that tens of millions of Americans depend on.”
In response to the administration's threats, labor unions filed a lawsuit Tuesday, claiming the move is unlawful and an attempt to penalize workers while pressuring Congress. “Announcing plans to fire potentially tens of thousands of federal employees simply because Congress and the administration cannot agree on funding is not only illegal – it’s immoral and unconscionable,” said Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, emphasizing the dedication of federal employees to public service.
