Shutdown Woes Deepen As 800,000 Federal Workers To Miss Second Paycheck; IRS Employees Bail
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
Wed, 01/23/2019
With negotiations behind the partial government shutdown showing no signs of a breakthrough, an estimated 800,000 government employees are set to miss a second paycheck on Friday.
Roughly 420,000 federal employees are working without pay, while around 380,000 have been furloughed amid the longest shutdown in US history, according to CNBC.
While the actual economic impacts are thus far thought to be limited, specific companies and industries are feeling the effects.
Commercial airlines, for example, are facing slower demand as airports struggle with understaffed security checkpoints, are losing revenue. Last week, Delta said it had lost $25 million in revenue on account of the shutdown.
The hit to the overall gross domestic product in the first quarter is also difficult to quantify. Economists have come up with a range of numbers, but they agree that the longer the shutdown goes on, the wider the damage to economic growth. -CNBC
Hundreds of IRS employees, meanwhile, will probably skip work as part of a coordinated protest which takes advantage of a provision which allows them to stay home if they suffer a “hardship,” according to the Washington Post. With IRS offices headed into their busiest time of the year, the the shutdown may result in delayed refunds and frustrating wait times, despite President Trump’s promise not to delay payments.
“I have fielded no less than 30 to 40 calls, emails or text messages about hardship requests from employees daily since Thursday,” said Shannon Ellis, President of the National Treasury Employees Union.
The Rest…HERE
