Meanwhile, these people are still being paid as usual.
Washington, D.C., and Maryland are already seeing a flood of furloughed federal workers applying for unemployment insurance. The workers face massive uncertainty about how long Republicans will keep the government shut down, added difficulties getting benefits, and uncertainty about how unemployment funds will hold up:
In response to the increased demand, the D.C. Department of Employment Services is requiring all initial claims for unemployment to be filed online, said spokeswoman Najla Haywood. The agency said it is processing claims, but there might be delays for federal workers in order to verify their income and employment status while their offices are closed.
“We were prepared for this,” Haywood said. “We’re ready for the increase in inquiries.”
The federal government pays into a fund for unemployment insurance just as other employers do.
“Currently the fund is fully solvent,” Haywood said. “However, the duration of the shutdown will have an impact over time.”
Maryland got more unemployment claims from federal workers in one day this week than it usually does in a year, and the claims keep coming. The District of Columbia is presumably dealing with an even greater load.
If they ultimately receive retroactive pay for the shutdown, the workers will have to return the unemployment benefits they collected. Retroactive pay is no certainty this time around, though, since hurting federal workers is one of the set of Republican goals being achieved by the shutdown. Meanwhile, many of these workers are earning less than $40,000 a year while living in a relatively expensive metro area.