The government shutdown gets uglier at the end of this week.
With President Donald Trump traveling abroad and Congress still deeply divided over a path to fund federal agencies, a pileup of deadlines on and around Nov. 1 is set to put many U.S. households at risk of new hardship: Popular programs that provide nutrition assistance, early childhood education and air service to rural communities are now among those about to run out of money.
Thousands of federal employees will also miss their first full paychecks this week, so services like TSA screenings and air traffic control operations could be further stunted if those workers stop showing up, as was the case during the 35-day partial shutdown that ended in early 2019.
“Things are about to get worse,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune warned in a floor speech late last week.
And that’s to say nothing of the Nov. 1 date that open enrollment begins for Affordable Care Act health plans. That’s when people will start to see just how much their premiums are set to skyrocket because insurers aren’t confident Democrats and Republicans will reach a deal to extend enhanced tax credits before they expire at the end of the year — a central point of conflict amid the partisan shutdown impasse.
Trump employed a strategic — and unprecedented — maneuver to alleviate the first major pain point of the shutdown earlier this month, when he paid active-duty members of the military out of other accounts. Still, the White House has yet to take similar steps to fund several other priorities where payments come due in the coming days.
In Congress, some lawmakers are working to mitigate the shutdown’s effects on select services with piecemeal bills. But none of those measures are on the fast track to final passage.
As the shutdown hits the four-week mark and Thanksgiving fast approaches, here’s when cash is expected to run out for key programs if Congress can’t strike a deal soon.
SNAP food aid
Food assistance that more than 40 million people rely on — the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP — will start to run out of money Saturday. And the Trump administration won’t tap emergency funds to keep those food benefits going, according to a memo obtained by POLITICO.
At least 25 states are already planning to cut off benefits, which support low-income families.
Some lawmakers have been pressing the administration to tap into an agriculture contingency fund to pay out some of the benefits next month. That pot of cash only has about $5 billion left, though — far less than the roughly $9 billion needed to cover food aid through November.
Head Start
Federal funding will stop flowing on Saturday to some early childhood education programs supported by Head Start, the Health and Human Services program that funds education, health and nutrition services for more than 800,000 children under the age of six.
More than 130 programs are set to miss federal funding, spanning 41 states and Puerto Rico, and serving about 59,000 children, according to the National Head Start Association, the nonprofit organization that represents the providers. Loss of federal funding means some teachers won’t get paid and some centers will close.
After funding first lapsed Oct. 1, Head Start programs serving about 6,500 children didn’t get their usual cash.
WIC nutrition assistance
The administration already buoyed funding earlier this month for the federal nutrition assistance program that serves about 7 million low-income mothers and babies by redirecting cash from an account that funds things like school breakfast and lunch programs.
But the coffers will dry up Saturday unless the Trump administration taps another $300 million in emergency cash for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, commonly known as WIC.
Essential Air Service
The Trump administration has warned that the Essential Air Service — which subsidizes airline service to small, often rural, communities — is likely to run out of funding over the weekend.
Some airlines serving Alaska and other remote areas of the country might have to increase airfare to have enough cash to pay staff in the absence of federal subsidies. Residents and businesses in hard-to-reach areas have been sensitive to disruptions in the program, especially after many airlines stopped operating out of small airports during the pandemic.
The service is crucial enough that the Transportation Department tapped $42 million to avoid a lapse earlier this month.
Military pay
Members of the military will miss paychecks on Friday if Trump doesn’t intervene like he did earlier this month, when he paid active-duty servicemembers by tapping about $6.5 billion meant for military research and development efforts. But it could be hard to make the same move again since that pot of cash had about $10 billion left before the president pulled from it last time.
Trump does plan to continue using other funding to cover military paychecks during the shutdown, according to two White House officials granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Pentagon officials also said Friday that they have accepted an anonymous gift of $130 million from a wealthy donor to help pay military salaries during the shutdown.
The White House has not disclosed how much money it believes is still available, however, and a multibillion-dollar payout twice a month could quickly drain the Pentagon’s leftover cash.
Federal civilian paychecks
Many civilian employees across government agencies will experience their first fully missed paychecks of the government shutdown Tuesday and Thursday, after some already went without compensation late last week since there are different pay periods for various federal offices.
Congressional aides are among the people who will feel the pain, with House staffers due to miss pay Friday. Their Senate counterparts are set to go without compensation the following week. The lawmakers embroiled in the shutdown standoff, however, will continue to get their salaries on schedule thanks to the Constitution.
The Trump administration has been looking for ways to pay air traffic controllers during the shutdown following his unilateral action to pay the troops. And while some lawmakers have proposed legislation to that end, Senate Democrats rejected a measure last week that would pay select government workers and active-duty members of the military.
Opponents of that bill argued that it would empower Trump to choose who gets to be paid and who must remain on furlough without a paycheck, strengthening the negotiating position of Republicans as the shutdown continues.
Speaker Mike Johnson has also said he would not call House lawmakers back to town to pass piecemeal bills to pay federal workers, arguing that it would “take the pressure off” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer “to get his job done and open the government again.”
Meredith Lee Hill, Grace Yarrow, Mackenzie Wilkes, Pavan Acharya and Katherine Tully-McManus contributed to this report.
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