A week into the shutdown, federal workers are stuck in limbo
Consider This from NPR
NPR
4.1 • 5.3K Ratings
🗓️ 8 October 2025
⏱️ 10 minutes
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Summary
There's no indication that an agreement could come soon, as Republicans and Democrats in congress trade continue blame. Meanwhile, federal workers are stuck in limbo, and its unclear when or if they'll be able to return to their jobs.
NPR's Labor Correspondent Andrea Hsu and political reporter Stephen Fowler explain what's causing the impasse in congress and what's at stake for the federal employees caught in the middle.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | A week into a federal government shutdown, many government employees feel like they're twisting |
| 0:04.7 | in the wind. On Sunday, President Trump suggested federal workers were being fired because of the |
| 0:10.3 | shutdown. The Democrats are causing the loss of a lot of jobs. It's a shutdown. It's their shutdown, |
| 0:17.4 | not our shutdown. The next day, White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt walked back that claim. |
| 0:22.2 | The president was referring to the hundreds of thousands of federal workers who have been furloughed |
| 0:26.5 | as a result of this federal government shutdown, both here at the White House and across the entire federal government, |
| 0:32.3 | at agencies across the board. |
| 0:34.2 | There are federal workers who are staying home. |
| 0:36.1 | And then yesterday, Trump and other top |
| 0:37.7 | Republicans raised doubts about whether furloughed workers would get back pay when the government |
| 0:43.0 | reopens. Stuck in the middle of all of these threats, like no back pay for furloughed workers, |
| 0:48.3 | are those employees? I think it's ridiculous. It's obviously illegal. The law is very clear. |
| 0:56.0 | I think they're just making up threats to try to intimidate us. Monica Gorman is one of the many federal workers who aren't |
| 1:01.0 | working right now. She's employed at NASA and is a member of the IFPTE Local 29, the employee union there. |
| 1:07.9 | She spoke with NPR in her personal capacity and said, even though her job may be at |
| 1:12.5 | stake, she is glad the shutdown is focusing attention on federal workers. To see people in Congress |
| 1:18.2 | taking a harder line, I feel like we're finally being heard now in a way that we weren't before. |
| 1:23.7 | Consider this. The federal government shut down a week ago, and there is no sign it will reopen any time soon. Will federal workers pay the price? |
| 1:36.1 | From NPR, I'm Scott Detrow. |
| 1:40.8 | The federal government has shut down. What are lawmakers arguing about? |
| 1:45.3 | And what does it mean for you? |
| 1:47.2 | The NPR Politics Podcast is here to make sense of it all, giving you updates and news every day to keep you informed. |
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