PAID VACATION??? If you aren't paid, it's not a vacation, it's a layoff

[CreekDog]

1) People aren't paid during a shutdown, if they aren't deemed essential, they are effectively laid off until further notice.

2) Many, if not most of those workers are covered by ethics rules that preclude working for private employers in their profession (because they work for agencies that regulate the private sectors in those professions).

3) Those ethics clearances are required to even begin looking for work assuming it can be approved.

4) Unemployment insurance takes a while to kick in.

5) For people who are deemed essential, they will be paid but only after the government opens, so they can't feasibly pick up work elsewhere on the side, unless you want your Air Traffic Controller to work at JC Penney after his/her shift ends.

6) Some people deemed essential but not deemed essential full-time. So they may be required to come into work for just a few hours per day. They are only guaranteed to be paid after the shutdown for *hours worked*.

7) Government contractors, for which there are about 2 for every 1 federal employee, often have stop work orders and lose pay during the government shut down. It is NOT repaid.

All this together screws up everyone's economy, because when these folks don't have money coming in, they don't have money going out, or at least far less. Cars don't get bought, houses, appliance purchases are postponed.

Some people dip into savings and hang in there. But how many people do you know that don't have much in the way of savings?

[spooky3]

1. The shut down and uncertainty are awful for all of them, but to be fair,

they usually get paid for the time off after the shutdown ends. Congress passes something to give them pay. However, they can never count on it, and with this Congress and President, they have a lot of reason to be worried.

[CreekDog]

2. and the money doesn't come in while the shutdown is happening

while some folks are fine covering all their bills out of savings until the money starts flowing again, a lot of people can't do that.

[Wellstone ruled]

3. Glad you are posting this.

As someone who has had to cut checks in order for their family members who work for TSA in order buy groceries and Fuel as well as pay their rent,been there and done that.

That is another reason I am happy and proud to be a Democrat.

[mcar]

5. Most people these days live paycheck to paycheck

Even govt employees and the highly educated. Hubby and I are in the latter category.

[spooky3]

7. my post doesn't dispute that. I just was responding to the OP, which claimed that the employees were

not paid at all. While as I said I agreed with the main point, it's incorrect or at least incomplete to call this time unpaid in the same sense that people never get paid for the time--at least not until we know what the idiot Republicans will do.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

4. thanks for the details!

We depend on these workers.

[Ms. Toad]

6. When a private employee is laid off

they never get paid for that time. They don't get paid retroactively for the period of time in which they were not required to report to work.

Yes - it is a hardship not to be paid in a timely manner - BUT the reality is that they have never NOT been paid for the period of time in which they were not reporting to work.

There are tradeoffs for working for the government - the benefits are better than most private employment, and (generally speaking) you have more rights to continued employment than private employees. In exchange, you risk periodically receiving no income for a while when the idiots in Washington decide to play politics with your job. But ultimately you get paid - and it has happened enough recently that all government employees ought to be putting away enough to live on should the routine occurrence happen again.

But no, it is not a layoff.

[CreekDog]

8. Congressman Mark Meadows-R, is that you?

thank you for joining us.

(Meadows is head of the Freedom Caucus, everybody)

I'll link to your full statement, contained in the Washington Post article.

“It’s actually part of what you do when you sign up for any public service position," Meadows said. "And it’s not lost on me in terms of, you know, the potential hardship. At the same time, they know they would be required to work and even in preparation for a potential shutdown those groups within the agencies have been instructed to show up.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/12/20/rep-meadows-tells-federal-employees-who-wont-get-paid-during-shutdown-you-signed-up-this/?utm_term=.310e7284de11

[Ms. Toad]

9. Nonsense.

Just someone who understands the meaning of the term "laid off," and who knows that when you ultimately get paid for the time off that it is not a layoff.