The current shutdown began on Oct 1. There have been a total of 10 government shutdowns in American history. Four of those 10 shutdowns have happened under the Trump administration.
Government shutdowns have lasted for different amounts of time. The shortest one lasted for one day while Bill Clinton was in office. The longest shutdown lasted 35 days, under the first Trump administration.
A government shutdown is what happens when “…Congress fails to pass or the president refuses to sign a spending bill to fund the federal government’s operations.” When a shutdown occurs, many things happen. For one, non-essential government services are temporarily closed. This means that all the employees working for a non-essential service are temporarily laid off.
No money is able to pass through the government, so no federal employees are getting paid. Some federal jobs have a reserve of money in case a shutdown happens, but these reserves are not meant to last for long stretches of time. When the reserves run out, the company has little to no money to pay their employees. This lack of money leads to employees not being able to work full work-weeks. It could start as being off 1-2 days a week, but eventually they could be only working once a week.
The current government shutdown was caused by a disagreement between Republicans and Democrats on healthcare. The Trump administration wants to make significant budget cuts to Medicaid, a healthcare service that provides millions of people with affordable care, so that they can lower taxes for billionaires. Democratic senators will not sign this bill, in hopes that they can keep Medicaid for everyone. Since Republicans cannot get the votes they need to pass their legislation, the government has shut down.
Another problem with the government shutdown is that SNAP benefits were suspended on Nov 1. A judge ordered Trump to restore the SNAP benefits, but he says he will not reinstate them until the government reopens.
The end result is still unclear for this shutdown.
