Congress Approves Backpay For Federal Workers Affected By Government Shutdown

President Donald Trump still needs to sign the legislation,
but it’s looking like federal workers will eventually get any
paychecks they’ve missed.

The House on Friday passed a bill to grant backpay to federal
workers who have been furloughed or required to work without pay
during the partial government shutdown, approving a measure that
already cleared the Senate.

The bill still requires a signature from President Donald Trump,
but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) indicated
Thursday that the president told him he would sign it if it reached
his desk.

The Senate unanimously passed the measure, and all but seven
Republican members in the House voted in favor of it.

So the House just passed a bill to grant
backpay to federal workers hit by the shutdown. Just seven members
voted against it, all Republicans:
Justin Amash (Mich.)
Andy Biggs (Ariz.)
Paul Gosar (Ariz.)
Glenn Grothman (Wisc.)
Thomas Massie (Ky.)
Chip Roy (Tex.)
Ted Yoho (Fla.)

— Dave Jamieson (@jamieson) January
11, 2019^[1]

Polling indicates that Americans are more likely to blame Trump
for the shutdown than congressional Democrats. Not approving the
backpay measure could come off as an unnecessarily cruel decision
from the president. Lawmakers have always approved backpay for
workers when previous shutdowns have put people out of work.

The legislation is a welcome development for the 380,000 workers
who are furloughed and not working and the 420,000 “essential”
personnel who are clocking in but not receiving paychecks while
certain government functions are going without funding. But those
workers still have bills to pay and won’t receive their wages until
the government reopens and enough time passes to process
payroll.

The National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association,
an advocacy group for federal workers, said the legislation
provides “some comfort” to the federal workforce but isn’t “an
immediate solution” to the mounting problems created by the
shutdown, which began on Dec. 22.

“Federal employees are scrambling to make arrangements for
unpaid bills, including tapping their retirement accounts,” Ken
Thomas, the group’s president, said in a statement. “Evictions are
becoming a real possibility, medical issues go untended, local
economies are suffering and services to citizens have ceased as
workloads pile up.”

The partial government shutdown marked its 21st day on Friday,
and it is now tied for the position of the longest shutdown on
record. Trump is demanding $5.7 billion to build a wall along the
U.S.-Mexico border that he used to say Mexico would pay for.
Democrats have refused to give him that money. The president has
said he is considering declaring a national emergency to secure the
funding, a move that would inevitably draw legal challenges.

Because of the impasse, Congress has not appropriated money for
roughly one-quarter of the federal government, leading to furloughs
at agencies such as the Interior Department and the Department of
Homeland Security. For thousands of workers, Friday marked the
first typical payday without any pay.

Workers are planning to use several strategies to eke by without
steady income, including taking out loans, applying for
unemployment benefits, borrowing money from family members and even
forgoing medication.

huffingtonpost.com