Some 800,000 federal employees across nine Cabinet departments and dozens of smaller agencies — out of a total federal workforce of 2.1 million — have been in unpaid status since Dec. 22. For those on furlough, there is no assurance of back pay, although the practice in past shutdowns has been that furloughed employees also were paid retroactively. The House previously had voted in favor of providing back pay to furloughed employees twice, in separate bills it approved last week and Wednesday. “While this legislation will provide federal employees with the certainty that they will eventually be paid, that cannot happen until the shutdown ends.”The measure would apply only to furloughed federal employees. Separate legislation is pending in Congress calling for contractors to similarly pay their lower- and middle-income employees who have been furloughed because of the partial shutdown.

Source: Washington Post January 11, 2019 18:47 UTC