The longest government shutdown in U.S. history is officially over after President Trump signed a bill passed by Congress on Wednesday night.
The federal government is reopening. But after 43 days on pause, things may not return to business as usual, right away. For instance, federal workers are still awaiting backpay and air travel disruptions are expected to linger.
And some impacts could continue much longer than six weeks, whether that’s national parks trying to make up for lost visitor revenue or taxpayers waiting longer for refunds from a backlogged Internal Revenue Service (IRS). There’s also the looming threat of another potential shutdown in the not-too-distant future, since this bill only funds the government through Jan. 30.
Federal employees return to work, awaiting back pay. Roughly 1.4 million federal workers have gone without pay for six weeks. Roughly half of them were required to keep working without paychecks, while hundreds of thousands of others were furloughed. Russ Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, told agency heads to direct furloughed employees to return to work Thursday. “Agencies should take all necessary steps to ensure that offices reopen in a prompt and orderly manner” on Thursday, Vought wrote in a Wednesday memo.
Judge indefinitely halts shutdown layoffs noting human toll – The timing of backpay is a different question.
After the government shutdown ending in January 2019 — then the longest in history — Congress passed a law ensuring back pay for federal workers “at the earliest date possible after the lapse in appropriations ends, regardless of scheduled pay dates.” But Trump appeared to suggest otherwise in public comments last month, leaving many feds worried.
The bill that Congress passed to end the shutdown guarantees back pay. It also reverses several agencies’ attempted staffing reductions during the shutdown, which were paused by a federal judge, and prevents additional layoffs of federal employees through January. Shaun Southworth, a federal employment attorney, said in an Instagram video that the timing of backpay will vary by agency based on their payroll providers, but most employees should start seeing deposits within days. “Many employees historically saw deposits within the first business days after reopening,” he says of the last shutdown. “A minority may roll to the next cycle if the system needs extra processing.”
