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<p>Congress must authorize retroactive pay for non-essential (non-excepted) employees, so your sister’s employer cannot know yet whether that will happen or not.</p>
<p>We still haven’t heard from S yet, so don’t know if he IS or is NOT on furlough (he’s not good about returning calls). When we last spoke with him, he had no idea whether he was deemed essential. He just flew back to DC the other day from LA.</p>
<p>I did speak with Medicare and Social Security today. Both were fairly helpful. I also mailed a package at the post office, which was also helpful, but a hybrid non-profit related to the government but not government employees. There were two employees I saw, when the office opened a bit after 11am.</p>
<p>^ If he is not calling, he needs no money which means he is ‘excepted’?</p>
<p>TatinG ~ the national parks will not open unless the rest of the govt returns to work. No special deal for them (as far as the Senate is concerned) Yes, the House passed it, but the legislation isn’t going anywhere.</p>
<p>1214mom ~ I feel your pain. I could have written that myself.</p>
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<p>It affects public and private university research, most of which is funded by the federal government. Researchers won’t need to shut down labs and other research projects already underway–at least not immediately. Research under grants already awarded is already paid for–the funds were appropriated long ago. But grant-awarding agencies–NIH, NAS, DOE, etc.–are mostly shut down and are not accepting or processing new grant applications. If the shutdown is short, there should be minimal disruption, but if it’s dragged out for a lengthy period, it throws a huge monkey wrench into universities’ and individual researchers’ ability to plan and budget for coming fiscal years, and schools may need to scramble to find alternative stopgap funds to keep some research moving forward and some researchers funded. This represents a huge fraction of the budget at major research universities; it pays many of the bills and keeps many people employed, especially in the sciences and medicine.</p>
<p>He is an essential worker who is expected to work without being paid for now. All travel has been cancelled–he normally goes to visit the sites of the projects he supervises. He just returned from visiting one of those sites. Fortunately he has a significant nestegg, so he’s not having an eminent cash crunch. We did tell him to let us know if he develops liquidity problems.</p>
<p>H is worried for his former colleagues. Last time he spoke with them, only a few were deemed essentials and others sent home. They have bills to pay and some live paycheck to paycheck.</p>
<p>DH is an excepted fed employee, so he’s at work but without pay til it’s over. He’s beside himself that his entire staff is on furlough and don’t know if they will be paid after this is over. These are folks who work long, long hours on important regs and are already understaffed. DH tries hard to be a supportive and caring boss, but this while mess is so completely out of his hands.</p>
<p>Many folks we know are either feds or are working under various fed contracts. The DC area economy is shutting down pretty quickly because of the uncertainty. A friend of mine who’s a hairdresser said she has already had client cancel appointments because they are on furlough and need to limit spending.</p>
<p>is the shutdown effecting you personally ~ was the original question.</p>
<p>DD, a doctor of pharmacy student -we talked to her today. She was not able to access the most up-to-date medical periodical she wanted for research.</p>
<p>How are college students being effected by this?</p>
<p>I work in mortgage lending and the impact is going to be huge unless resolved quickly. The vast majority of lenders verify that the borrower’s name and Social Security number match SSA records - can’t do that task now. We also request IRS tax transcripts on every loan to make sure the borrower has not provided falsified tax returns. Can’t complete that task either. What this means is that any loan application started in the past few days and going forward will not be able to close on time unless the government reopens and we can complete those two required verifications. And of course, we can’t close any loans for furloughed Federal employees - not until they are back at work. Very unfortunate situation.</p>
<p>I have a young cousin who is a journalist in the US working on a 12 month visa. He applied for an extension several months ago, with the support of his employer, but had to send more information supporting his application. He was supposed to hear shortly:AFAIK it is probably
on indefinite hold. Meanwhile, he is not allowed to legally drive his car or work. </p>
<p>Another person I know who is retiring from the State Dept at the mandatory age was travelling to DC for a pre-retirement debriefing, not knowing whether it would happen or not but required to go anyway.</p>
<p>Sorry, don’t see any silver linings.</p>
<p>I work for a government contractor, and our company will be facing serious problems if the shutdown continues for more than a few days.</p>
<p>We received stop work orders on some of our contracts. On other contracts, it’s impossible for people to work because the tasks they perform have been suspended during the shutdown. So all of these people are billing their time to overhead. The company can’t tolerate that for very long. </p>
<p>I happen to be one of the people who can continue doing my usual work – possibly for several weeks before it becomes impossible to continue. But I don’t think that my personal situation will matter much if the company gets into serious financial trouble as a result of the shutdown.</p>
<p>Fortunately, we’re not being directly affected but I have many friends who work for the federal government, and I feel for all those who are suffering from all the undercertainty. We live near a wildlife refuge, and in the fall there are usually a lot of programs. Their electronic sign tonight said everything closed/cancelled. Also all the entrance roads were chained shut.</p>
<p>H had a research grant. Fortunately, his finished yesterday at the end of the fiscal year. His colleagues are not so lucky, esp. those that are in the renewal process.</p>
<p>As far as I can tell, we havent been affected, but it is early days.</p>
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<p>Not much, so far. If it goes on for a long time it could wreak havoc on the budgets of universities that are heavily dependent on federal research grants, as that process has shut down. In the meantime, federal financial aid programs like Pell grants and Stafford loans are proceeding as usual.</p>
<p>Some students planning to study abroad might be inconvenienced. The State Department is still accepting and processing passport applications, but some passport offices are located in federal buildings that are closed, so those offices are closed.</p>
<p>Students interning in federal agencies may have their internships interrupted, depending on the agency. Students applying for federal jobs or internships may find that applications are not being accepted or processed, again depending on the agency.</p>
<p>It’s impacting college football:</p>
<p>[Government</a> shutdown: Navy-Air Force game could be canceled - Philip Ewing - POLITICO.com](<a href=“http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/shutdown-pentagon-service-academy-sports-97657.html]Government”>Navy-Air Force game could be off - POLITICO)</p>
<p>I went to a service academy and we have homecoming in a few weeks. Figures…first time since graduation, I decided to go and the government is shut down.</p>
<p>I had an interview for a research position at my state university. It’s since been postponed indefinitely.</p>
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<p>More importantly, it’s impacting classroom instruction at the service academies. Military instructors are unaffected, but civilian faculty and staff are furloughed. At the Naval Academy, that’s about half the faculty. Military personnel are trying to fill the gaps, but it’s bound to be chaos.</p>
<p>Also, civilian employees in ROTC programs are furloughed. Short-term, military personnel will cover for them as best they can, but if it lasts a long time, ROTC programs will be disrupted.</p>
<p>On-campus interviews by many federal agencies are also being postponed or canceled.</p>
<p><a href=“University community braces for effects of federal government shutdown”>University community braces for effects of federal government shutdown;
<p>I live near DC and expected the morning commute to be easier today – no luck! Also, roads leading into Rock Creek Park were closed (it’s a National Park), some of them are major commuter roads and now they’ve become bike paths. The official bike paths, like the Capital Crescent Trail and the C & O Canal are closed. There doesn’t seem to much, if any, daily maintenance or oversight on these trails so I don’t see why they had to be closed at all. </p>
<p>My friends who are addicted to the “Panda Cam” are all very sad. Many places around here are offering discounts or free service to furloughed federal workers.</p>
<p>Crap. </p>
<p>There goes my research for the rest of this and next semester…</p>
<p>I’ll survive. As long as my study abroa doesn’t get cut…I’ll survive.</p>