When Jill Hornick woke up on Monday morning, her first thought was that her timecard would be submitted that day for her job with the Social Security Administration in Chicago. But this Monday was different. The federal government was locked in a shutdown, and she received a paycheck for $0.
“This is the only income I have,” she said. “And I just started crying. I had a meltdown.”
Ms. Hornick, 59, is one of 730,000 federal employees working without pay because of the impasse. Another 670,000 federal workers are furloughed without pay, according to data from the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington think tank.
As the shutdown stretches toward its fifth week, those government employees are confronting an increasingly acute and stressful scenario. Their bills are mounting, and there is no clear resolution in sight.
Some are turning to side hustles like delivering food, walking dogs and selling personal items to bring in a bit of income. Others are relying on food banks that have been hastily organized to provide federal workers and contractors with free groceries — efforts that community service providers say reflect a broadening food insecurity caused by the shutdown.
The widespread anxiety is punctuating what has already been a grueling year for federal workers as the Trump administration has raced to shrink and reshape the government, and moved to eliminate hundreds of thousands of jobs.
The last shutdown, which came during President Trump’s first term, was the longest ever, lasting 34 full days. The current standoff, which began Oct. 1, could stretch even longer. There are no negotiations for a deal to reopen the government, which Democrats say must include an agreement to extend expiring subsidies for health insurance.
Mr. Trump has shown no inclination to start talks.
“I will only meet if they let the country open,” he said on Tuesday, just days before he left Washington for a trip to Asia.
The impact of the political paralysis could be seen early Friday morning as hundreds of cars lined a road in Northern Virginia, filled with federal workers and government contractors waiting for boxes of food being distributed by United Community, a local nonprofit group.
It was one of five sites set up in partnership with the Capital Area Food Bank, a hunger relief organization, to distribute groceries in the Washington region, which is home to nearly 20 percent of the federal work force.
Casey Perez, a mother of five from Maryland who is furloughed from her civilian job at Fort Belvoir, said the last three weeks had been tough.
“I don’t know how to get the mortgage paid,” Ms. Perez, 34, said as three of her children waited patiently in the back seat of her car.
A 28-year-old Transportation Security Administration officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said it was his first time at a food bank. But he said that he had no choice: Half his monthly income went to rent and bills.
Representative Don Beyer, a Northern Virginia Democrat, was among the two dozen volunteers loading boxes of produce and dried goods into cars.
Mr. Beyer had time to help, he said, because the House had not been in session for more than a month.
“It’s incredibly frustrating,” added Mr. Beyer, who said he was not taking a paycheck while the government was shut down, in solidarity with staff members and constituents who were not getting paid. “There are so many really important things we should be doing.”
Some federal workers are seeking creative ways to string together enough money to cover their bills.
Imelda Avila-Thomas, a furloughed Labor Department employee in Texas, said she had been going from room to room inside her home in a San Antonio suburb to see what she could sell to help make ends meet.
One piece of furniture jumped out: a tan pullout sofa that her late mother slept on when she visited. Ms. Avila-Thomas said that her mother had died unexpectedly in 2022, and that she had held on to the sofa because she was still processing her death.
“I don’t think I was ready to get rid of it,” she said. But she sold it on Nextdoor, a neighborhood networking app, for $40.
Then there were the baby clothes she was saving for a future granddaughter. She decided to sell those, too.
As the president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 2139 labor union, Ms. Avila-Thomas said she had been fielding calls and text messages all day from members asking whether they could take on additional work during the shutdown, such as delivering Amazon packages or substitute teaching. She said she had also been receiving a flurry of questions about when the shutdown would end.
If only she knew.
Under federal law, the government is required to pay back federal workers once funds become available. But Mr. Trump has said that may not be the case for everyone.
Not all federal workers are going unpaid. Around 830,000 federal employees are still receiving their salaries because their offices are self-funded or there is other money to use, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.
And Mr. Trump directed the federal government to reprogram billions of dollars to pay members of the military, immigration agents and other law enforcement officials, an unusual move that cuts Congress out of its role in appropriating funds.
Last week, the president announced that an anonymous donor gave the government $130 million to help pay the country’s 1.3 million active-duty troops. He declined to identify the donor, but The New York Times reported on Saturday that it was Timothy Mellon, a reclusive billionaire and top Trump financial backer.
The notion that federal workers were not all being treated equally came as a “punch in the gut,” said Cameron Cochems, a Transportation Security Administration officer in Boise, Idaho, who is working without pay.
Mr. Cochems said that his car had recently broken down, and that the $800 it would take to fix it was not an option during the shutdown. He has been driving his father’s car to work.
“It’s embarrassing,” he said, adding that he was lucky that his family could support him through the ordeal.
That was not the case for many of his co-workers.
Mr. Cochems said that one of his colleagues had told him that she planned to quit and work for a friend’s cleaning service.
“I have no idea how long people can hold out,” he said. “We can only drain our savings for so long.”
As the vice president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 1127 chapter, Mr. Cochems said he had been working with local nonprofits to collect food for the break room at Boise Airport.
There is mounting concern about the pressure on air traffic controllers and T.S.A. officers, including about how long they can go without being paid. Some airlines were resorting to buying lunch for controllers, according to Sean Duffy, the transportation secretary.
“They tell me about their own stresses and how they have to take a second job,” Mr. Duffy said on Friday at a news conference at Philadelphia International Airport.
At Seattle-Tacoma International Airport last Wednesday, badged T.S.A. officers and other federal workers flocked to a pop-up food bank organized by the local nonprofit Food Lifeline. Even before the event’s scheduled start time, organizers said that more than 40 airport workers were lined up.
“We were quite shocked,” said Aaron Czyzewski, the advocacy and policy director for Food Lifeline, which served 341 households that day. “We had to pause halfway because we were running out of food too fast.”
He added: “The demand was overwhelming. This conveys the anxiety people have about their situation, and how close to the margin they are.”
Torrance Dixon, a Food Lifeline employee who led the distribution effort, said that some workers had told him they were considering quitting.
“When I talk to them, I say it’s not their fault — this is something being done to them by a system,” Mr. Dixon said. “It almost feels like federal workers are casualties of war.”
Washington State is home to more than 79,000 federal workers, and in recent weeks, around 79 federal workers have applied for unemployment benefits each day, the state said. Federal employees who are working unpaid are not eligible for the benefits.
As the shutdown continues, government workers will have to make more tough decisions. Some said that they had called creditors seeking a reprieve. Others said that they were looking to take a loan out of their pension plans.
Labor unions are encouraging affected members to sign up for federal food stamps. But as of Friday, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, was set to run out of funds in November.
In interviews, federal workers expressed a deepening frustration with Congress.
Ms. Hornick, a leader of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 1395 chapter, said it was unconscionable that both political parties had put federal workers in these positions, especially as lawmakers continued to be paid.
“How dare you refuse to pay the federal employees who are serving your constituents?” she said.
Karoun Demirjian and Margot Sanger-Katz contributed reporting. Kitty Bennett contributed research.
Eileen Sullivan is a Times reporter covering the changes to the federal work force under the Trump administration.
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