Federal workers hunker down as they go without pay in shutdown: “Protect every penny”
Jill Hornick, a 59-year-old service representative at a Social Security Administration field office in Illinois, would normally have received her latest paycheck on Friday. Instead, she was last paid on Oct. 10 — for three days less than she had worked.
Hornick is defined as an essential worker and continues to report to the office on a daily basis during the government shutdown. She said she doesn’t have time to search for a second job and isn’t eligible for unemployment benefits. Because of the stalemate in Congress, now in its 24th day, Hornick also has no clue on when the next paycheck will arrive.
“It’s very annoying that employees who are furloughed can collect unemployment, but employees who are essential and have to work without pay cannot collect unemployment,” Hornick told CBS News. “And yet I am showing up on my own dime because we still have to pay money to put gas in the car, pay the daycare center, because they are not going to take kids for free.”
While roughly 670,000 federal employees are furloughed, approximately 730,000 other government employees deemed essential — such as air traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration officers — continue to work without pay during the shutdown, according to estimates from the Bipartisan Policy Center.
Hornick, whose annual income is about $75,000 a year, is now scrambling to stay afloat. That means paring her spending and contacting her mortgage lender and other creditors to ask for lenience.
Read more here.
Jeffries says Republicans are trying to “weaponize hunger” with SNAP deadline
At his daily press conference at the Capitol, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries was asked about millions of Americans potentially losing access to food aid under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, on Nov. 1 if the shutdown continues.
He noted that the program has an “emergency contingency fund” of about $5 billion that could be used to continue paying benefits, and that “not a single American should go hungry” on Nov. 1.
“The challenge that we confront right now is that Donald Trump and Republicans on Capitol Hill are trying to weaponize hunger in order to jam their extreme right-wing policies in their spending bill down the throats of the American people,” Jeffries said. “That’s unacceptable. That’s un-American. That’s unconscionable, that Republicans are actually trying to weaponize hunger across the country.”
He also pointed out that Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed last summer cut tens of billions of dollars from the SNAP program.
“We will not let them lecture the American people about nutritional assistance when, in their One Big Ugly Bill, they cut $186 billion — these are Republicans, this year — $186 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program,” the New York Democrat said. “That’s the largest SNAP cut in American history, and people believe right now that Republicans actually care about hunger, when they ripped food away from the mouths of hungry children, seniors, families, women and veterans, to provide massive tax breaks to their billionaire donors? Get lost with that.”
Schumer says Senate Democrats will force votes on Trump tariffs next week
President Trump announced Thursday evening that he would be cutting off trade talks with Canada due to an ad campaign by the province of Ontario that featured a speech by President Ronald Reagan criticizing the use of tariffs.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement that Senate Democrats will force votes next week “to reverse Donald Trump’s damaging tariffs on Canada and other countries that have been one of the driving forces behind higher prices.”
“Americans … will see if Republicans put Donald Trump or average families first,” Schumer said.
The president has imposed steep tariffs on many goods imported from Canada, prompting Canada to impose its own retaliatory levies. The two sides had been engaged in talks aimed at resolving the dispute.
White House says inflation report likely won’t be issued next month due to shutdown
The Labor Department issued its monthly inflation report on Friday, showing the Consumer Price Index climbed at an annual rate of 3% in September, below economists’ forecasts.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt welcomed the news in a statement, but said that next month’s report will likely not be issued due to the shutdown. The report is based in part on surveys done by Labor Department staff.
“Democrats choosing to keep the government closed will likely result in no October inflation report, which will leave businesses, markets, families, and the Federal Reserve in disarray,” Leavitt said.
The White House statement explained that “[b]ecause surveyors cannot deploy to the field, the White House has learned there will likely NOT be an inflation release next month for the first time in history — depriving policymakers and markets of critical data and risking economic calamity.”
On Oct. 10, the Labor Department said all releases of economic data would be suspended during the shutdown but made an exception for the September CPI figures, since they are required to make cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security benefits. The Social Security Administration announced a 2.8% cost-of-living adjustment for 2026.
Read more about the inflation report here.
Head of U.S. Capitol Police union says lack of shutdown talks is “extremely frustrating”
Gus Papathanasiou, the head of the union representing U.S. Capitol Police officers, told CBS News in a statement that the lack of negotiations aimed at ending the shutdown is “extremely frustrating,” given that officers are working without pay.
“My officers are frustrated right now. This is the second pay period where they will not be paid, and they are really feeling the financial pressure,” Papathanasiou said. “I have officers who are taking out loans to pay their rent and feed their families. I have officers who are borrowing money from family members to make their car payment, pay for daycare, or pay their student loans.”
Capitol Police are responsible for protecting lawmakers and the Capitol complex. Papathanasiou is the chairman of the U.S. Capitol Police Labor Committee, the force’s union.
“It is extremely frustrating that neither side is talking to the other because we are eventually going to have to compromise and end this shutdown. The longer this continues the worse it gets for all federal employees and this nation,” he said.
States warn SNAP benefits may stop in November if government shutdown continues
States are warning struggling Americans who rely on food stamps to pay for groceries that they may miss out on benefits come November.
“Starting October 16, SNAP [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] benefits will not be paid until the federal government shutdown ends and funds are released to PA,” reads a notice from the Pennsylvania state website.
New Jersey, Maryland, New York and Texas are among the other states that have issued similar notices.
The wave of announcements come after the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the federal food stamps program, issued a letter to state agencies on Oct. 10 saying that if the lapse in appropriations continues, there will be “insufficient funds” to pay full November SNAP benefits.
Reached for comment, the White House referred CBS News to the USDA, which then shared the letter it sent to states. Both declined to comment on what a lapse in funding could mean for the millions of Americans who rely on the program.
Read more here.
Johnson says he’ll keep pushing bill to pay federal workers during shutdowns
Speaking to reporters after Thursday’s votes, GOP Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said he will continue discussions aimed at passing his bill that would pay federal employees, service members and contractors who continue to work during a lapse in funding. He said Democrats should support advancing the bill to begin the amendment process and that their differences were “not insurmountable.”
“The way to do it is get on the bill and then start working out the differences and hopefully pass it next week. Now, I fear it won’t get cloture. That doesn’t mean the discussions won’t continue,” he said. “I talked to both Sen. Van Hollen and Sen. Peters. We’ll get our staffs working on this, and see if we can iron out differences, and maybe we can come to an agreement next week.”
Johnson noted the differences between his bill and the Democratic proposals, namely that his version would apply to all future shutdowns, not just the current impasse: “I want to make this permanent. I want to stop playing brinkmanship. I want to stop playing with people’s lives.”
He also said he is “willing to talk” about restricting the president’s ability to lay off employees during a shutdown, but doesn’t want to “completely hamstring” the White House.
Thune says Democrats are “in a very bad headspace right now”
On the Senate floor Thursday afternoon, Majority Leader John Thune commented on the failed vote to advance the bill to pay federal workers, and expressed exasperation at his Democratic colleagues.
“I don’t know how you would explain — if you have any federal employees — how you would vote against something that would make sure that, in the middle of a government shutdown, if they continue to work, that they get paid. That’s all it was. Very simple, very straightforward,” Thune said. “I think the other side is in a very bad headspace right now, to vote against something like that.”
He continued: “If you have any federal employees in your state, obviously a lot of them here in this area, all of our staffs are currently not getting paid. Sen. Johnson tried to correct that today by calling up a bill which we just voted on and which once again Democrats here in this chamber voted against.”
Thune said he “can’t explain what’s going on on the other side of the aisle, but they consistently come down here and vote against paying people who are working, working every single day and not getting paid.”