What the shutdown means for Mississippians
STARKVILLE, Miss. (WCBI) – Some federal employees are in limbo.
They may not be unemployed, but their checks may not be coming anytime soon.
The United States Government shutdown on Wednesday.
This comes after Congress could not come to an agreement on a spending bill.
Rather than pass a comprehensive annual budget, lawmakers have largely been relying on appropriations bills and continuing resolutions.
“So, what we’re left with are these sort of short term funding bills that are often called continuing resolutions and what occurred yesterday was the inability of the senate to pass a bill that would allow the government to remain funded until later part of November,” said Dr. Brian Shoup, a professor of Political Science and Public Administration at Mississippi State University.
Dr. Brian Shoup is a Political Science and Public Administration Professor at Mississippi State University.
He said federal workers are the most affected by the shutdown.
“The immediate would be with those who will be furloughed, or in certain cases, like with the military, they’ll be obligated to report for duty, but they won’t receive their paychecks yet,” said Shoup.
Shoup said there are about 17,000 federal workers in Mississippi.
However, some workers were already taken care of financially.
“For things like Homeland Security, ICE, certain programs that were funded in the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ from earlier this summer, those individuals should not see their pay as interrupted in the same way as other workers,” said Shoup.
Dr. Brian Blank is an associate professor of Finance at MSU.
“Typically, in the past, those federal employees have received back pay even though have not been working and the mandatory workers that are required to keep us safe, they also are paid in retrospect as well,” said Blank.
Existing benefit payments should already be going out, but there could be delays in approval for new applications for things like Social Security, VA, and Medicare benefits if no one is in an office to process requests.
“Things like Social Security will be there, Medicare and Medicaid should be there, the problem is whether or not, they will get to people in a timely manner,” said Shoup.
However, Blank believes the economy is still growing in spite of the present circumstances.
“To be honest, it’s expected to grow relatively rapidly. So, if it grows a little bit slower, the economy can be in a really healthy position despite some of these disruptions we may observe over the coming weeks,” said Blank.
This is the first government shutdown since 2018.
CBS said the Senate is expected to begin its next round of votes on funding the government Friday afternoon.
