Q&A of the Day – How Much of the Federal Government is Currently Shutdown?
Each day I feature a listener question sent by one of these methods.
Email: brianmudd@iheartmedia.com
Social: @brianmuddradio
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Today’s entry: @brianmuddradio Why hasn’t Trump used the shutdown to downsize the government yet? Also how do current furloughs compare to previous shutdowns?
Bottom Line: As to your first question...your guess is as good as mine. While President Trump has repeatedly suggested that a partial government shutdown would effectively allow him to expedite the downsizing of the federal government that DOGE has begun to do, we’ve not seen anything to that effect just yet. There’s a reasonable chance that his inaction is motivated by political posturing. Both parties aggressively seek to gain the upper hand in public perception during a government shutdown.
It may be the case that the president is of the mindset that permanent layoffs during the partial shutdown would be perceived by many Americans as an intentional plan by Republicans, which would make it easy for Democrats and their allies in most news media to paint the GOP as the party to blame for orchestrating a partial shutdown – which, regardless of your political preference – isn't the case. When you hear that the House passed a “clean” continuing resolution, they did, meaning Republicans are simply seeking to keep the status quo based on previously signed laws into place. It’s Democrats that are seeking to leverage their senate filibuster into changing laws they don’t like to bring back COVID-era policy on ACA subsidies and Medicaid work requirements.
While many of us seeking a smaller federal government aren’t concerned with the perceived politics of this, we know next year’s mid-term elections are a top concern of the Trump administration, as Democrat control of congress would not only end Trump’s legislative agenda for his final two years as president, but also likely lead to an endless cycle of attempted impeachments. This dynamic is likely why action hasn’t been taken yet. And I say yet because there is one noteworthy and interesting dynamic to this partial shutdown... How deep it’s gone.
As I’ve previously covered, during the typical government shutdown an average of 15% of the federal government is “shutdown” on the low end, with an average of 20% being offline on the high end. It’s why it’s a massive mischaracterization to suggest that the government is shutdown. Most of it isn’t. But here’s what’s interesting about this one. It’s the most aggressive partial government shutdown to date. I’ll explain.
As of today, the partial shutdown—now in its fifth day—continues to furlough approximately 34% of the civilian federal workforce, or about 750,000 employees out of a total of roughly 2.2 million (excluding active-duty military). This estimate, from the Congressional Budget Office, reflects agency contingency plans submitted to the Office of Personnel Management and accounts for variations in daily furloughs, which could rise if the shutdown prolongs.
Breakdown by Major Agencies:
- Department of Homeland Security: 5%
- Federal Aviation Administration: 25%
- Executive Office of the President: 32%
- Department of Health & Human Services: 41%
- Department of Defense: 45% (all civilian)
- Department of State: 62%
- Department of Education: 87%
- Environmental Protection Agency: 89%
- Internal Revenue Service: 100%
What we’ve seen is that the Trump administration's contingency plans emphasize minimizing furloughs for "essential" functions but include, such as potential large-scale reductions in force for non-priority roles. The net effect of all of this is largest partial government shutdown in American history by way of furloughed employees with over a third of all federal employees currently not reporting to work. It’s this dynamic that perhaps suggests what might come next.
While perusing CBO data about this, an interesting note popped up regarding furlough notices. It’s this: furloughs could transition into permanent layoffs after a 60-day notice period. In other words, furloughed employees are on notice that they may not necessarily be retained going forward. The Office of Management and Budget’s guide for furloughed employees is extensive – 65 pages in total. Notably, on page 50, there’s an entire section explaining that there may be resulting reductions in force that are implemented during the shutdown, and explaining the difference between reductions in force and furlough’s. The Warn Act, requires 60-day notifications for layoffs at the federal government level. It would seem as though that clock began ticking last week.
In other words, this point is this. Whether President Trump comes out an says “X” number of employees will be fired as part of a permanent reduction in force or not has no bearing currently. The notice to all furloughed employees to begin the 60-day clock is already underway. This allows the president to balance the politics of this along with what may be his longer-term strategy. Of course, I don’t know if the president will push through any RIFs as a result of this – only that his administration has been historically aggressive with the number and percentage of furloughed federal employees and that the notice about RIFs has been given to literally every furloughed employee. We’ll have to wait and see what the end result will be.