Federal workers WON’T get paid on Friday if shutdown goes past midnight Tuesday

When the federal government’s paymasters process their next biweekly run of checks and direct-deposits, nearly 800,000 employees will be left in the lurch – unless a partial shutdown ends by Tuesday night at midnight.

‘If we don’t have an agreement I think by midnight on the 8th, which is Tuesday, then payroll will not go out as originally planned on Friday night,’ Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said Sunday on ‘Meet the Press.’

That is creating anxiety over a coming cash crunch, especially for federal workers who rely on publicly subsidized housing in parts of the country where the cost of living is high. The largest proportion of impacted workers by far are in Washington, D.C., where 1 in 8 face a lapse in their pay.

The Housing and Urban Development Department sent letters Friday to more than 1,500 landlords, asking them to go easy on renters – and acknowledging that one program used to pay them a subsidy had expired permanently on January 1 without Secretary Ben Carson’s office knowing it.

President Donald Trump faces a payroll deadline for nearly 800,000 federal employees who wont get checks on Friday if the partial government shutdown lasts into Wednesday

No one affected by the furloughs has gone without pay yet, but that could change by week's end

No one affected by the furloughs has gone without pay yet, but that could change by week’s end

HUD spokesman Jereon Brown told The Washington Post that staff are ‘scouring for money’ to bridge the gap. 

the Internal Revenue Service is also scrambling to find a way to process income tax refund checks for taxpayers who are filing in the early days of January, as soon as they’re eligible. 

An administration official said Monday that a large majority of government employees, those who don’t work for the federal agencies affected by the shutdown, won’t notice any change in their pay schedule.

But two Two White House spokespersons did not respond to requests for confirmation, adding to confusion over whose bank accounts will be light at the end of the week.

The federal government is the nation’s largest civilian employer, with about 2 million workers.

Nearly 800,000 have been involuntarily off the payroll since funding for their departments expired three days before Christmas.

About half of them were sent home for the holidays; the others, deemed ‘essential’ workers, have been required to show up each day without any guarantee of when they will be paid.

Separately, 1.3 million active duty military personnel and 497,000 in the postal service draw paychecks every two weeks but won’t be affected.

Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said Sunday that employees of departments that are still closed at midnight Tuesday night won't be paid as scheduled

Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said Sunday that employees of departments that are still closed at midnight Tuesday night won’t be paid as scheduled

Ben Carson, secretary of Housing and Urban Development, is asking landlords to let government employees off the hook when their rent checks come due

Ben Carson, secretary of Housing and Urban Development, is asking landlords to let government employees off the hook when their rent checks come due

Federal payroll periods end every other Friday; direct deposits and check-writing begin two weeks later, and the next period is finishing.

But without money to pay employees, some federal departments can’t give the General Services Administration the order to process their payrolls. That usually happens three to five days before payday.

President Trump hsa threatened to keep the shutdown going for a ‘long time’ as he tries to pressure congressional Democrats to fund his border wall.

But he has also hinted that he could move in a matter of days to declare a national emergency, giving himself the power to endertake the project without legislative approval.

All workers on furlough and mandatory work status have received back pay following past shutdowns, making their household shortfalls a short-term phenomenon.

Federal contractors whose work has to stop at the same time aren’t always so lucky: Their projects often pick up where they left off, with no federal dollars for the forced time off.

About 3.7 million private contractors serve the federal government. It’s unclear how many of them are affected by the shutdown.

The Departments of Justice, State, Homeland Security, Transportation, Agriculture and Interior are among the Cabinet-level agencies that are in limbo.

So are NASA, the National Parks Service and the IRS, FBI, ATF and DEA.

Their budgets represent about 25 per cent of the government’s overall spending. 

A large majority of Uncle Sam’s outlays go to mandatory entitlement spending like Medicare and social Security, and to interest on the national debt. 

Of what ‘s left, more than half is spent on the military.

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk