First pay cycle without checks nears for tens of thousands of federal workers across New York State

WASHINGTON — Tens of thousands of federal civilian employees on Long Island and across New York State are expecting to miss full paychecks for the first time starting Friday because of the U.S. government shutdown.

With Congress showing no signs Wednesday of resolving its impasse over the federal closure, the economic fallout is about to start landing harder for many of these workers. Thursday will be the 23rd day of the nation’s second-longest shutdown.

"I told my credit card companies [about] the situation, and I sold some stocks, and I have some savings — so that will be a little bit helpful," Danny Tsoi, 35, of Whitestone, Queens, said of his preparations in an interview Wednesday.

But the former U.S. Marine Corps veteran, who's been furloughed since Oct. 1 from his federal job as a health insurance specialist, said he can only hope the missed paychecks won’t go on for long.

There are as many as 31,000 federal civilian employees living on Long Island, and 115,000 statewide. Exact numbers on how many of these are among the roughly 700,000 federal civilian workers who have been furloughed nationwide are not available.

Federal workers, by law, are supposed to get back pay once the shutdown ends, but President Donald Trump and his budget lieutenant have questioned whether the government must do that.

Meanwhile, almost as many federal workers — jobs such as air traffic controllers — are continuing to work without pay.

Most of the nation’s federal civilian workforce last received paychecks for a biweekly pay period through Oct. 4. But many were partial ones, missing three or four days of pay because the shutdown began Oct. 1.

The Washington-based Bipartisan Policy Center estimates that, starting Friday, more than 1.8 million federal workers will for the first time miss their full paychecks. Some agencies' next paydays are Friday, and others are on Tuesday or on Oct. 30.

Active-duty military members who are continuing to work — including more than 2,000 service members on Long Island and 28,000 in New York State — had previously braced for a missed paycheck on Oct. 15, But the Trump administration announced just days before that it would reallocate $8 billion to fund the military during that first pay period.

But if the shutdown continues through the military’s next payday on Oct. 31 and no added money is moved around again, over 1.7 million of those paychecks could be withheld.

There are a number of bills in Congress to make sure these pay lapses for civilian and military workers don’t occur. But with both parties still dug in on Wednesday, none of these shutdown-pay bills appear to have the bipartisan support to pass.

For federal workers like Tsoi, who lives in the congressional district represented by Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove), the impacts are direct. Speaking Wednesday after testifying to a Democratic committee at the U.S. Capitol, the furloughed health insurance specialist at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, described his preparation for missed pay.

Tsoi has been proactive in reaching out to his credit card companies and lenders to set up financial plans — and at least one, he says, has responded helpfully by pausing interest charges.

But he added that he fears the shutdown will see him have to "blow through all my savings for the future," and hopes it doesn’t leave him, financially, with a "starting at scratch sort of thing."