“It’s a clown show,” said Max Stier, president of Partnership for Public Service, a Washington nonprofit focused on improving government. Between 650,000 and 800,000 federal employees have been furloughed nationally, the organization said, and more than 1 million are still working — mostly without pay.
Stier said the cuts appear to be taking place with little strategy, other than retaining employees in areas that align with the president’s priorities.
“They’re using the shutdown as another vehicle to pursue unconstitutional and illegal management of public resources,” he said.
The White House budget office indicated in a court filing last week that it would seek to dismiss thousands of federal workers during the shutdown. Trump suggested federal workers might not receive back pay when the shutdown ends, as typically occurs after government closures.
“Everything is so chaotic right now that it has just been very difficult to get accurate, timely information about anything,” said Rich Couture, AFGE vice president at the Massachusetts AFL-CIO. “Across the board, it’s just incredible uncertainty.”
Most of the 25,000 affected workers in Massachusetts are furloughed, but the rest — including at least 600 in the Social Security Administration, 1,110 in the Transportation Security Administration, and 400 at the Bureau of Prisons — are working without pay, AFGE said.
While a majority of Democrats and independents said in a recent AP-NORC poll that the shutdown is a “major problem,” Republican and Democratic voters tended to view whom to blame through a partisan lens, saying the opposing party was responsible. A majority of independents, meanwhile, blamed both parties.
The Trump administration has blamed the shutdown and furloughs on Democrats, who declined to pass a measure continuing government funding last month under pressure from voters to more firmly resist Trump’s agenda. Andrew Nixon, a Health and Human Services Department spokesperson, said reduction-in-force notices were a “direct consequence of the Democrat-led government shutdown” after the department became a “bloated bureaucracy” under former President Joe Biden.
Meanwhile, members of Congress and the executive branch leadership are still on the job with pay.
Across New England, roughly 1,200 Social Security Administration employees at 75 offices are working without pay, according to AFGE Local 1164. They received their final paycheck the week ending Oct. 11 — minus three days of pay in October, but with full benefits deducted — and sticker shock is starting to set in, said Camillie Pineiro, a claims representative in Springfield.
Christine Lizotte, a claims representative in Auburn, Maine, said she can live off savings, but most of the 25 or so people she’s spoken with are living “hand to mouth.” Many are married to other federal workers who aren’t being paid; one man has two young children, one of whom is disabled, and a wife who stays home to care for them.
“Nobody is talking to anybody, nobody is smiling, nobody is even looking up,” she said of her office. “The fear level is growing exponentially.”
Co-workers are teaching each other what they normally teach clients: how to apply for food stamps and fuel assistance, “how to be poor for a while,” Lizotte said. People have been saying they’re not going to panic until the checks stop coming but, “now’s the time to panic,” she added.
At the Department of Housing and Urban Development, 185 AFGE bargaining unit members across six New England offices were furloughed without pay, and 15 people were let go. The Boston Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity office, which has 11 bargaining unit employees, was completely eliminated, but a temporary restraining order delayed their December layoff date, said Sajid Shahriar, president of AFGE Local 3258.
Employee firings and resignation programs have severely restricted HUD work, Shahriar said, adding, “It’s kind of been a slow rolling disaster for the entire year.”
Federal departments last month were tasked with developing plans for a government shutdown. The Department of Health and Human Services shutdown plan stated 32,460 workers nationally, out of 79,717, would be furloughed. At the Environmental Protection Agency, nearly 90 percent of the agency’s 15,166 workers nationwide were scheduled to be furloughed, according to that agency’s shutdown plan.
EPA personnel still working say they’re being paid with carryover funds but aren’t sure how long those will last.
“For whatever reason, most EPA staff are still working. Since it’s a lapse in appropriations, we don’t know when we’ll be paid. This is highly unusual and probably illegal. We’re all in the dark,” said Lilly Simmons, president of AFGE Local 3428.
One Boston area EPA worker on furlough, who asked to withhold her name for fear of retaliation, said she could seek a no-interest loan through a credit union if the shutdown goes on. She is applying to jobs amid rumors her division could face layoffs. Earlier this week, she drove to upstate New York searching for a break in the monotony, saying, “I didn’t know what to do with myself, and I felt like I needed to go be in nature.”
“It’s been tough,” she added. “We all are pretty sure we’re going to get back-paid, but there’s also the threat that’s up in the air that we might not.”
The federal courts in Boston, Worcester, and Springfield, meanwhile, are handling criminal and civil cases as usual and will remain open as “essential staff will continue to work,” according to Robert Farrell, the US District Court for Massachusetts clerk.
Court employees, including federal public defenders, are being paid from an account funded by various court fees and will get paychecks next week, people familiar with court operations said — but it’s unclear what will happen after the fund is depleted.
The federal judicial branch said Friday that it would not have the funding to “sustain full, paid operations” beginning Monday.
The Justice Department stopped paying federal prosecutors, trial attorneys, and support staff, but they are continuing to work. “Crime does not stop during a government shutdown, nor does the work of the United States attorney’s office,” Massachusetts US Attorney Leah B. Foley said.
Areas that represent priorities to the Trump administration, however, have fared better. The president signed an executive order Wednesday calling on the Pentagon to ensure active-duty military personnel will be paid. House Speaker Mike Johnson, however, said that move was a “temporary fix,” as it doesn’t guarantee personnel will receive their next paycheck at the end of October.
The vast majority of the Department of Justice’s 115,131 workers — 89 percent — are exempt from being furloughed, according to its September contingency plan, but it’s unclear how many of those workers are receiving paychecks. FBI Director Kash Patel thanked Trump on Wednesday for continuing to pay special agents, a position held by more than 13,000 of the agency’s employees.
Just 8 percent of the Department of Homeland Security’s nearly 272,000 workers were to be furloughed, per the department’s September plan. Another 44,466 workers are paid outside of typical government appropriations.
Spokespeople for DHS, and two of its divisions, TSA and the Secret Service, referred to a social media post from DHS Secretary Kristi Noem on Thursday, in which she said that more than 70,000 sworn law enforcement officers — including personnel working in border protection, immigration enforcement, transportation security, and Secret Service agents — will be paid for hours they work during the shutdown.
However, TSA screeners, who account for 95 percent of the agency’s 64,000 employees, are not entitled to draw paychecks during the shutdown even though they are required to report for work, an agency spokesperson said.
A spokesperson for the agency asked for patience from the 2.5 million passengers who pass through US airports each day. “Despite this challenge,” they said, “we will remain vigilant and focused on performing our vital security mission on behalf of the American people.”
Shelley Murphy of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
Anjali Huynh can be reached at anjali.huynh@globe.com. Katie Johnston can be reached at katie.johnston@globe.com. Follow her @ktkjohnston. Laura Crimaldi can be reached at laura.crimaldi@globe.com. Follow her @lauracrimaldi. Jason Laughlin can be reached at jason.laughlin@globe.com. Follow him @jasmlaughlin.
