Nearly two weeks after the end of the longest government shutdown in U.S history, many federal workers still have not received their back pay or have only gotten a fraction of what they are owed as government agencies struggle with payroll glitches and other delays.
And even as they scramble to catch up on unpaid bills and to repay unemployment benefits, the prospect of another shutdown looms next week.
President Trump stood in the Rose Garden at the end of the shutdown and said, We will make sure that you guys are paid immediately. … And here it is, its almost two weeks later, said Michael Walter, who works for the U.S. Department of Agriculture food safety inspection service in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and only got his paycheck Wednesday. He said two co-workers told him they still had received nothing.
The government has been short on details about how many people are still waiting to be paid.
Bradley Bishop, a spokesman for the Office of Management and Budget, said the Trump administration had taken unprecedented steps to ensure federal employees impacted by the shutdown received back pay within a week.
Much opposite of slow and chaotic, an overwhelming majority of employees received their pay by Jan. 31, he said, though he didnt respond to questions about how many people still hadnt been paid.
The USDA said in a statement that pay was its top priority, but also did not respond to questions about how many workers were still awaiting paychecks. Asked to confirm that some people hadnt been paid, USDA spokeswoman Amanda Heitkamp replied, Im not sure.
Donna Zelinas husband works for the Bureau of Indian Affairs in South Dakota. He has received only a portion of his back pay, and does not expect to be fully paid until Feb. 12. The couple had to drain their savings shortly before the shutdown when both his parents died, leaving them in a precarious financial position.
Zelina said she called her creditors, but they wouldnt work with her. Her husbands car loan went into forbearance, causing them to rack up fees.
I dont think people really understand what people do in government and just assume that everybody … makes millions of dollars, she said.
A spokesman for the Department of Interior, which handles payroll for more than five dozen government offices, did not answer when asked how many workers were due back pay, but said a small group of employees had not received anything. Spokesman Russell Newell said others received interim payments of back pay that would be made up in the next pay period.
The Census Bureau acknowledged Wednesday that about 850 employees nationwide have yet to receive back pay or have only gotten a fraction of what theyre owed. A spokesman said they expected most of those workers to be paid by Friday.
Other affected agencies include the Federal Aviation Administration, where two unions representing FAA workers said their members had not yet received all of their back pay.
Doug Church of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association said members who worked during the shutdown had not gotten overtime, which he said was a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act. They also had not received the extra pay they were due for working nights and holidays, he said.
David Verardo, a union local president, said he was still owed $2,000 and estimated that the 1,000 workers his union represents at the National Science Foundation in Alexandria, Virginia, are each due between $1,200 and $3,000 for the two pay periods they missed.
