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The government shutdown costs taxpayers $400 million every day to pay federal employees who are not actively working, totaling $1.2 billion as of Friday, Congressional Budget Office (CBO) data published by Sen. Joni Ernst’s, R-Iowa, office estimates.
“Schumer’s Shutdown Shenanigans mean taxpayers will be on the hook for another $400 million today to pay 750,000 non-essential bureaucrats NOT to work,” Ernst said in comment to Fox News Digital Friday.
“Democrats’ political stunt to fight for taxpayer-funded healthcare for illegal immigrants has officially become a billion-dollar boondoggle,” she added. “Enough has to be enough for the radical left. We must reopen the government and get Washington back to work serving veterans, families, and hardworking Americans.”
A law passed in 2019 requires furloughed employees receive backpay after a funding agreement is reached and a shutdown ends. The CBO found that the furloughed employees’ daily cost of compensation sits at about $400 million, or a total of $1.2 billion as of Friday.
“Using information from the agencies’ contingency plans and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), CBO estimates that under a lapse in discretionary funding for fiscal year 2026 about 750,000 employees could be furloughed each day; the total daily cost of their compensation would be roughly $400 million,” a letter from the Congressional Budget Office to Ernst stated Tuesday. The data was released after the Iowa Republican requested CBO provide a data cost breakdown of the shutdown in September as the deadline clock ran out.
The CBO data largely was based on statistics from a five-week partial shutdown that ran from Dec. 22, 2018, until Jan. 25, 2019, under the first Trump administration, the office noted in its letter to Ernst.
The letter added that the number of furloughed federal employees, which is currently estimated to sit at about 750,000 staffers, could vary by the day “because some agencies might furlough more employees the longer a shutdown persists and others might recall some initially furloughed employees.”
The government shut down early Wednesday morning after Senate lawmakers failed to reach a budget agreement. House lawmakers had approved a short-term extension of fiscal year 2025 funding earlier in September that aimed to keep the government funded through Nov. 21.
The Trump administration and Republicans have since pinned blame for the shutdown on Democrats, claiming they sought taxpayer-funded medical benefits for illegal immigrants. Democrats have denied they want to fund healthcare for illegal immigrants, and instead have blamed Republicans for the shutdown.
Fox News Digital reached out to Schumer’s office for comment on the CBO data and Ernst’s remarks but did not immediately receive a reply.
“Democrats are burning $400 million a day to pay federal workers not to work because they want to spend $200 billion on free health care for illegal aliens,” Desai told Fox News Digital. “These are not serious people.”
Trump repeatedly has said he did not want a shutdown to unfold, but noted Tuesday as the clock ran out that some “good” could come from it.
“A lot of good can come down from shutdowns,” he told reporters. “We can get rid of a lot of things that we didn’t want, and they’d be Democrat things. But they want open borders. They want men playing in women’s sports. They want transgender for everybody. They never stop. They don’t learn. We won an election in a landslide.”
The administration is expected to lay off federal employees across various agencies amid the shutdown, with Trump meeting Office of Management and Budget chief Russell Vought Thursday to map out which departments and programs to target for cuts.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Thursday that “thousands” of employees will likely be laid off.
“Look, it’s likely going to be in the thousands,” Leavitt said. “It’s a very good question. And that’s something that the Office of Management and Budget and the entire team at the White House here, again, is unfortunately having to work on today.”
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