Shutdown weighs heavily on federal employees, contractors

Among the government’s suggestions to help make ends meet: offering mortgage lenders partial payments and even payments in kind—i.e., plumbing and carpentry work. (Photo: Shutterstock)

While some branches of the federal government are fully funded during the shutdown battle, others are not—and with some 420,000 government workers still on the job but without pay (including the U.S. Coast Guard, which falls under the Department of Homeland Security and not the Department of Defense), and another 380,000 furloughed, according to a CNN report, the situation isn’t pretty for a very large number of people.

Despite the claim of Rep. Scott Perry, R-PA, that federal employees would do just fine until more money comes in, some government workers are among the nearly 80 percent of American workers live paycheck to paycheck. And that means an awful lot of those federal workers are going to be in a very tight spot as soon as that next paycheck doesn’t come in.