The federal government shutdown is in its second week and shows no signs of ending soon. Whenever an agreement is reached to fund the government, thousands of federal employees could face an unwelcome surprise: They might not be paid for the time they were furloughed. On Tuesday, The New York Times reported that the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has considered withholding back pay remuneration for furloughed federal workers—something they've been entitled to since the passage of the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act in 2019, signed into law by President Donald Trump following the longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history.
The October 3 memo, drafted by OMB General Counsel Mark Paoletta, argues that the 2019 law merely authorizes the appropriation of back pay rather than automatically requiring it. In Paoletta's view, Congress would have to explicitly appropriate back pay funding in whatever legislation resolves the shutdown. Under this interpretation, only government employees deemed essential—namely military personnel and air traffic controllers—would remain unconditionally entitled to compensation following the shutdown, the Times reports.
