How the government shutdown is affecting Americans

Courtney Thoms writes that she and her husband both work with a federal contractor for NASA, and they are both going without pay. She says before the shutdown began, they started proceedings for her husband to adopt her daughter.

“Now that we aren’t getting paid, we can’t afford the Guardian Ad Litem the court is requesting to finalize her adoption on the 15th of this month,” Thoms says.

Thoms says they are worried about how they will afford their mortgage because they traveled over the holidays to see family.

“We weren’t expecting this, or we would have saved our money,” she says.  

Cynthia Letts writes:

Ravyn Senter writes:

Staffing for the agency overseeing the federal food stamps program has been cut by 95% because of the ongoing government shutdown.

Morgan Saul writes:

Jennifer P. says she and her husband are both federal workers. She just paid off her student loans, but that’s left her with very little savings.

Because of the shutdown, Jennifer says she and her husband have been trying to cut costs any way they can. She says they’ve been staying mostly at home, mining cupboards and forgoing outings with friend to cover the bills.

“We live in a very expensive valley, so it’s not the best location to be unemployed in, and it’s hard to get temporary work here since we don’t know how long we will be furloughed for.”

Trevor Bousu is an Air Traffic Control supervisor who works at Denver Air Route Traffic Control Center. He says he has “been proud of the work my controllers have done day in and day out without knowing when we will be paid next.”

Bousu says there is an “older Hispanic woman who diligently does her job of emptying garbages, vacuuming the facility and making our workplace clean.”

He’s concerned that the woman is unaware that she may not receive pay when the shutdown is over.

“Now I pray that is not the case, but she is just an example of hardworking people getting hurt the most.”

Rosalind Brooks says she is a single mother of two children who are still in daycare.

She writes:

“With the government still shutdown, no income in sight, and savings running low, I may be forced to withdraw my children from daycare.”

“If I have to, they will possibly lose their spot and I won’t have any care for them in the event we are forced to return to work without pay.”

Michelle V says her husband is a furloughed employee of the US Forest Service. Being without his paycheck is causing childcare worries for her family too.

“Theoretically my husband could watch our girls, but then we would lose our spot and be in a heap of trouble when the shutdown ends,” she says.

Sarah Doerr says her 6-year-old son has a rare, neurodegenerative disease called PKAN. She says the clinical trial for a potentially life-saving treatment is in the final stages of FDA review and approval, and that she was hoping the trial would start in early 2019.

Tony says he runs a drug company with a drug licensed from the National Institutes of Health.

Kimberlee Roberts, a stay-at-home mother of three children, says her husband works for Customs and Border Protection. She says he has to show up for work without getting paid, and “has been forced on overtime shifts because of short staffing.”

“We are just normal people who make enough to live. Missing paychecks, however, would be catastrophic to our family. We don’t appreciate being used as pawns in a political game. It may not affect Congress to keep the government closed, but it definitely affects the regular family just trying to pay our bills,” Roberts writes.

Steven Potter says he’s been a federal employee for three years. This is his second time being furloughed. He writes:

Gloria writes:

Meanwhile, Steve writes that as a federal law enforcement officer, he still must work without pay.

Steve says he has had to call his creditors to have bills postponed, and has also asked his landlord to postpone his rent payment.

“Every single year I have to skip my Wells Fargo mortgage payment of $560 on our modest $69,000 home, just to afford Christmas for our 3 sons,” Brandi Taylor writes.

Taylor says her husband, a former USN Airman, has one lung and “has been out of work since diagnosis.” She says they can’t simply find an extra $600.

Lorie McCann is a furloughed federal worker. On January 1, she paid her bills for the month and realized that the money was from her last paycheck.

“It is very stressful,” she says.

McCann has been an IRS worker for 28 years. She tells CNN’s Fredricka Whitfield that if the shutdown goes on much longer, she’ll have to make some tough decisions. That could include filing for unemployment, or looking for a second job.

“I am going to have to figure out what I’m going to do to sustain my lifestyle,” McCann says. “And just to be able to eat, honestly.”

Watch the moment:

James Laurick says he needs surgery. He says he was planning on using his tax refund to pay his insurance co-payment.

Because the IRS is among the federal agencies affected by the shutdown, tax refunds maybe be delayed this year.

Laurick says he will likely have to wait “in pain every day” for his tax refund.

Some employees at federal prisons are considered “essential,” and required to work without pay through the shutdown.

Here are some stories from prison workers and their family members.

Samantha writes:

Nik writes:

Sean writes:

Lindsey writes:

Katie Venable says she is a high school special education math teacher and first-time home buyer. Venable says she is planning to use a USDA loan but can’t have the loan completed because of the shutdown.

Lauren Dutrow writes that the buyer of her home has a USDA Direct Loan and cannot get funds released to purchase it because the agent coordinating their loan is on furlough due to the shutdown. Dutrow says she has to sell her home to purchase her new one, and says she may lose out if they keep having to extend the settlement.

Jenny Wilcox says she is a young parent with a foster child who was getting ready to close on her first mortgage in December using USDA.

Dante B. Halleck says he works at a federal hospital that serves a tribal nation. If the shutdown continues for months, Halleck says that employees might leave.

“There are very few people who can live without a paycheck for months, let alone a year. I am already looking to backup plans in the private sector. I have to – my wife and I just had a new baby,” he says.

Halleck says the shutdown could be detrimental to Native American communities.

According to Kaiser Health News, the shutdown has put some health services for Native Americans on hold.

The Indian Health Service will continue to provide services that “meet the immediate needs of patients, medical staff and medical facilities” during the shutdown, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

But other programs for tribal nations are taking a hit.

IHS won’t be funding grants to tribal health programs and health clinics run by the Office of Urban Indian Health Program.

Just before Christmas, Jessica Caraballo and her husband got the break they had long worked for.

In their three-year marriage, the 31-year-old and her husband, Shalique, have gottenjob after job trying to support their children. She has driven for Uber, he embalmed bodies at an Atlanta funeral home, and she worked all night at a Walmart store.

It was just last month when things finally appeared to be falling into place. Caraballo, a Transportation Security Administration officer at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, was promoted to a full-time position and her husband got a new job selling cars.

Buying a home, getting a second car and even just enrolling their three children in extracurricular activities at school would now be more than just dreams, they said.

But their joy lasted only a few days.

The partial government shutdown left Caraballo and 420,000 other federal workers across the country forced to work without a paycheck. Two weeks have passed and dozens of families like the Caraballos have put their lives on hold.

“Rent is due, light bill, gas bill, my car bill is due the 26th,” Caraballo said. “I already got my last paycheck and there’s no paycheck to come.”

Read the full story here.

Tyra Simpkins says she is a nanny who receives Social Security benefits. She cares for a boy whose mother is a federal employee. Since his mother is not working, the boy stays home, and Simpkins does not work.

Simpkins says she’s already lost $800 in 14 days, “with no end in sight.”

Cody Russell writes:

Jennifer Kittleson says she works for USDA-FSA as a program technician in North Dakota. She says she is a single parent who gets minimal child support for her two children. Living paycheck to paycheck, Kittleson says she is worried about when her next one will arrive. She says all of her bills are paid until mid-January, when the second half of the monthly bills come in.

Marcia Rose-Ritchie says she and her husband work for the Forest Service, so neither of them will be getting a paycheck next week. Fortunately, she says they have been able to maintain a decent emergency fund for situations like this.

They’re trying to make the most of the time they’re spending not at work. But in the meantime, they’re having to cut costs.

Rose-Ritchie says she and her husband are both retiring next year. They both had plans for their last months and “losing any of it is distressing.”

Jone Yohannes says he’s a Lyft driver in the DC area who relies heavily on federal employees for rides.

Yohannes says his girlfriend is a child care worker, and all the parents are federal employees. No work means she can’t pay rent, and Yohannes worries she’ll be evicted.

Susan Hirschy says she missed out on a trip to the synagogue over the shutdown. She lives in a rural area and says she needs to save gas and money.

Hirschy says she’s disabled and gets her income and food from government programs.

Eileen Connor says both she and her husband worked for the federal government for more than 30 years. The new year was supposed to be an exciting time for the couple, she says. Connor had filed retirement papers months ago to retire on January 21. Her husband was supposed to begin teleworking the same week.

Lakeisha Gardner says she applied in November to serve as a Peace Corps volunteer in Botswana in July 2019. It’s an opportunity she says she’s been planning for months.

The Peace Corps website isn’t being maintained during the government shutdown, and now Gardner doesn’t know if they’re still reviewing new applicants.

A US Coast Guard boat participates in the Homeland Security Task Force Southeast mass migration drill March 8, 2007 off the shore of Miami.

Since the Coast Guard falls under the Department of Homeland Security, it’s affected by the current government shutdown.

That’s causing frustration for several Coast Guard families.

Rosemary Cohen says her husband is in the Coast Guard, and the couple has two young children. They rely on two incomes to cover rising daycare costs, bills, food and other essentials. Now Cohen says she’s the only one working.

Cassandra Felt says her son has been serving in the Coast Guard for 3.5 years, and is working without pay right now.

Felt says she had dinner with her son during his duty recently. He told her he was able to pay his mortgage with the paycheck he received on the 1st, but he doesn’t know when the next paycheck will come.

Contractors for federal agencies are especially affected during the shutdown. Because they aren’t salaried, they won’t receive back pay for the days they didn’t work (or worked without pay) once the government reopens.

Here’s what some of them have been going through.

From Mark Greer:

From Willis Jones:

From B. Williams:

From Jerry Fisher:

Alice says she’s a PhD student working on NIH-funded, multimillion-dollar research. Her boss, the principal investigator, is unable to receive funding for second year of the grant.

Mark is affected by the shutdown as an employee with over 20 contractors who work for him. He writes that he has spent days working with creditors because of lack of funds to pay the bills this month.

Mark says he is looking to file unemployment and take a part time job for food and gas. He also says he plans to go to the food stamp office.

Allen Bartell says he’s a fifth grade science teacher. He’s planning a unit on weather and climate that relies heavily on the NOAA website. Due to the shutdown, the site isn’t being updated, which means many of Bartell’s lessons won’t work.

Donna Mitchell writes:

Tommy Nguyen says he is a federal employee who is working without pay.

He says the shutdown may prevent his son from completing his last semester.

Jessica writes:

Jonathan Fisher works for the US Fish and Wildlife Service in Oklahoma. He’s the head of a single-income family living paycheck to paycheck. His wife is finishing up a degree in speech language pathology, and his three kids are six and under.

If the shutdown lasts beyond January, Fisher says, he’ll need to move with his kids to Louisiana so that family members can care for them while he works and his wife finishes school.

Peggy McChesney said her husband of 40 years was a retired fire management officer with the USDA. He died on New Year’s Eve.

Now that the USDA and the Office of Personnel Management are closed due to the shutdown, she says she hasn’t been able to claim death benefits.

McChesney says she lives paycheck to paycheck because her husband had five surgeries in two years.

Sandra Quinones was supposed to close on a new home by December 28. Now she’s sitting among boxes.

She had been granted a loan from the US Department of Agriculture, but the USDA has been closed ever since the government shut down. Without that loan, her builders won’t get paid.

USDA loans are proving to be a big impact from the shutdown. The USDA provides zero-down-payment mortgages for low-income homebuyers in rural and suburban areas. The loans have low interest rates and fees, and are a good option for people who can’t get a traditional mortgage.

There are many more stories like Sandra Quinones. Here are some of them.

Nikki Kunkel says she’s the director for a charity race to raise money for the Children’s Tumor Foundation in Raleigh, North Carolina. She says she would need to apply for 501(c)(3) status within six months of the event.

Because the IRS is shut down, she hasn’t been able to obtain that status. That means her event could be in jeopardy.

Phil says he’s considered one of the essential workers in his USDA lab, and has had to work without pay. He’s had to come in and check on experiments and take care of live specimens, but dozens of other experiments will be lost or delayed.

Phil says he paid rent on the 1st of the month, but says he’s worried he won’t be able to cover other bills, gas and groceries for the rest of the month.

Phil says he’s trying to get a serving job to hold him over in the meantime, while some of his coworkers have suggested starting GoFundMe campaigns for lower paid employees.

The IRS is one of the federal agencies closed during the government shutdown.

Several students say they haven’t been able to get the tax transcripts they need in order to process their financial aid. It’s left some of them unable to afford tuition and possibly having to delay their courses for another semester.

Here’s what some students told us.

The shutdown has been a stressful time for some US Coast Guard families, as about 42,000 service members are being forced to work without pay.

Kayla, whose husband serves in the Coast Guard, says it took a toll on the holiday season.

Things could get even tougher. Kayla says she’s a full-time student, majoring in education. She has to start working at a local middle school soon, meaning her son will have to go to day care. It’s a bill she says she can’t avoid.

Kayla says she feels like the Coast Guard has been forgotten in the shutdown, even though it’s a branch of the military tasked with protecting Americans.

Watch her interview with Anderson Cooper:

Cheryl writes:

It’s not just TSA that’s running into staffing issues. Mike Jones writes that air traffic control staffing levels are very low, and warns that flights could start getting delayed or canceled.

Stuart writes that he’s one of the air traffic controllers required to come into work without knowing when he’ll be paid. His wife just had a baby and he says he was planning on taking two weeks off to help her recover. Now, Stuart says he’s being told that any time he takes off could possibly be unpaid.

Barbara L. Benedict says she and her husband are both federal employees. Because of the shutdown, their household has no income.

Benedict says she’s had to call doctors and dentists to reschedule appointments for later in the year because the couple “can’t commit our money to anything but surviving.”

Linda Walker is a NASA contractor at John C. Stennis Space Center in south Mississippi who says she’s been furloughed. She says she won’t get paid for all the days she didn’t work due to the shutdown.

Whitney says she works for the USDA as an assistant researcher. She’s struggling to finish her bachelor’s degree and pay for a wedding and graduation expenses, all while her fiancé is away serving for the Armed Forces.

Roni Keller, a legal assistant to a self-employed immigration lawyer, says the shutdown is affecting the deportation defense cases she works on.

But for Keller, there is one up-side to the shutdown.

Keller fears that a young couple from El Salvador and their son won’t be granted asylum due to the Trump administration’s restrictions on victims of domestic and gang violence. And she’s afraid of what will happen to them if they have to return.

A federal worker reached out to CNN. She would like to remain anonymous.

Patonia writes she is a veteran, single mom and federal worker in Dallas, Texas.

Amber McPherson says she started housing FAA students in Oklahoma City three years ago. Though Oklahoma is home to an FAA regional office and a booming aviation industry, she says corporate housing and short-term housing options are limited.

McPherson says the FAA makes up about 98% of the business. But with the shutdown, they’ve lost all the students staying with them as classes have been canceled.

They still have to pay rent and utilities on the units that house FAA students, but McPherson says she makes nothing while the government is shut down. When the business reopens, they won’t get any back pay.

Brian Radford says he currently works for a contracting company on a contract with a federal agency.

He was allowed to take 80 hours of leave, with pay, but that leave runs out of Friday. After that, he will have to take unpaid leave until he can return to work.

CLARIFICATION: This post originally stated that Radford’s unpaid leave has started. His leave begins on Friday.

Chandi Shepherd writes:

Elizabeth Langer says that she needs a visa to return to school in the UK, but the shutdown means that the USCIS Application Support Center is closed. Now she’s worried she may not get a visa in time.

Dana Dowling says she and her husband had just sold their first house and bought a new home. After coming back from out of town, they learned that they wouldn’t be able to close the deal on the house they had been scheduled to sell on the 31st.

The woman buying their home is using a USDA loan, Dowling said. Until they have the money from the house they’re selling, they can’t close on their new home.

Dowling said the shutdown has put them in limbo, and they’re hoping that they don’t get the plug pulled on them.

For now, the couple is sleeping in a family member’s guest room while all their belongings are in storage.