City officials initially declared the federal government shutdown would have negligible impacts on San Antonio in the short term. However, the ramifications are now substantial, as up to 38,000 of San Antonio’s federal workers may no longer be entitled to back pay for the current government shutdown, according to a memo from the Office of Management and Budget. This notion is not only a grave setback to thousands of families citywide but an abhorrent reneging of a law President Donald Trump signed during his first term, while the last government shutdown was underway.
Furloughed federal workers in San Antonio have gone unpaid since the start of the government shutdown on Oct. 1. Before OMB’s memo, these workers could find comfort that they would receive compensation once the shutdown ended. Now, they may never see that money.
If the city’s federal workers go unpaid, nearly half of them could face financial ruin, seeing as a report by United for ALICE found that 46% of households in Bexar County live paycheck to paycheck. Local federal employees who live check-to-check every month cannot afford to miss multiple weeks of pay. Their basic needs — child care, food, housing and transportation — may go unmet.
The potential for an outcome this severe in a single American city should be more than enough justification for the Trump administration to walk back the memo. Yet, over 750,000 federal workers across the country face a similar fate, and the OMB shows no signs of reversing its stance.
Instead, the OMB aims to “assist the President in meeting his policy, budget, management and regulatory objectives.” In its memo, it argues the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019 requires Congress to appropriate funds for the back pay of furloughed workers instead of guaranteeing those endowments. This new stance directly contradicts GEFTA and reflects the Trump administration’s complete and utter disregard for the American people.
GEFTA reads, “This bill requires employees of the federal government or a District of Columbia public employer who are furloughed or required to work during a lapse in appropriations beginning on or after December 22, 2018, to be compensated for the period of the lapse. The employees must be compensated on the earliest date possible after the lapse ends, regardless of scheduled pay dates.”
Trump signed GEFTA into law on Jan. 16, 2019, during his first term as president and amid the U.S.’s longest government shutdown. He minimized the impact the shutdown had on federal workers then but signed the bill regardless, surely indicating some semblance of care for those who work tirelessly to keep the country afloat.
It is abundantly clear now that neither Trump nor his administration show concern for the hundreds of thousands of lives and families hit hardest by the shutdown. Denying federal workers their once-entitled pay strips them of their means of survival in a dire situation. This is a devastating blow to the civilians who form the foundation of the federal government. Should the Trump administration continue on its path, the damage done will soon be felt at the top.
