Here are some effects of a government shutdown if Congress, Trump don’t reach a deal
Sep 30, 2025, 9:36 AM
Layne Morrison, left, of Washington, and Courtney Creek, of Silver Spring, Md., who were let go from their jobs with the Education Department and a USAID funded grant respectively, hold signs about the looming government shut down, Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2025, on Capitol Hill in Washington, during a rally with former federal employees. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS
(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
The federal government is nearing a partial shutdown, with a range of effects on public services and the broader U.S. economy.
Employee furloughs and potential layoffs would halt some government activities. Other functions — like NASA’s space missions, Trump’s immigration crackdown and certain public health work at FDA and the USDA — would continue.
Here is a look at some of what agencies are planning:
Most Department of Homeland Security employees would continue to work, reflecting the fact that so much of the department’s workforce is connected to law enforcement or works in areas funded by user fees as opposed to Congressional appropriations.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a plan published on its website that about 14,000 of the agency’s roughly 271,000 employees would be furloughed in the event of a government shutdown. That would include maintaining the vast majority of officers and employees at Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Transportation and Security Administration, Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, among other divisions.
Department activities such as providing Secret Service protection for President Donald Trump, processing cargo and passengers coming into the country and carrying out the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement operations would continue, the plan said.
Medicare and Medicaid programs and services will also continue uninterrupted, though staffing shortages could mean delays for some services, like the mailing of Medicare cards. The government has enough money to fund Medicaid for the first quarter of the next fiscal year, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. Also, eligible states will continue receiving payments from the Children’s Health Insurance Program, or CHIP.
While FEMA’s core disaster relief functions would not be affected, at least in the short term, other aspects of the agency’s work would be impacted. Some grant approvals would be paused, and no new policies could be written under the National Flood Insurance Program, halting new mortgages that require flood insurance.
Still, an extended shutdown could, in a worst-case scenario, exhaust FEMA’s existing Disaster Relief Fund, which stands at about $10 billion. House Speaker Mike Johnson warned Monday at the White House that FEMA “won’t be funded” during a shutdown.
Air traffic controllers already certified and on the job would be among the essential workers who would continue during any shutdown but their pay could be affected.
National Air Traffic Controllers Association President Nick Daniels has said that having to work without a paycheck adds stress to controllers who already do a difficult job. He said that in past shutdowns some controllers have even had to get side jobs to help pay bills while the shutdown drug on.
Capt. Jason Ambrosi, president of the Air Line Pilots Association, urged Congress to reach an agreement. “A shutdown threatens the stability of the safest aviation system in the world,” Ambrosi said.
However, the school that aspiring air traffic controllers attend in Oklahoma City would shut down and students would be sent home, hurting the administration’s efforts to address critical shortages in the profession. The disruption in training would likely prompt some to pursue a different career, making it that much harder to eliminate the shortage of 3,000 controllers nationwide.
Also, a shutdown could set back the multibillion-dollar effort to overhaul and modernize air traffic control equipment.
At the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than half the agency’s workers will be furloughed. Those still working include people who deal with infectious disease outbreaks and care for research animals and maintain laboratories. Federal officials said CDC would continue to monitor disease outbreaks.
Activities that will stop include research into health risks and ways to prevent illness, communications with the public, and work to help state and local officials prevent overdose deaths or other health problems, according to a federal planning document.
Research and patient care at the National Institutes of Health would be upended.
Patients currently enrolled in studies at the research-only hospital nicknamed the “house of hope” will continue to receive care during a government shutdown. Additional sick patients hoping for access to experimental therapies can’t enroll except in special circumstances, and no new studies will begin.
Scientists face the prospect of costly laboratory research going to waste because most of the sprawling campus of the nation’s premier medical research agency will empty out.
About three-quarters of NIH’s employees will be furloughed. Those still working include hospital staff and those needed for security or animal care. There’s also a ripple effect because NIH funds basic research and clinical trials at universities and other institutions across the country — and while existing grants aren’t affected, the agency can’t approve any pending applications.
Most of the Food and Drug Administration’s core responsibilities would continue, including responding to public health threats and managing product recalls and drug shortages.
Some routine activities, including previously scheduled inspections of company manufacturing plants, will be halted. But the agency will continue to conduct inspections when it has reason to suspect a problem that could endanger consumers.
Government activities that ensure the immediate safety of the food supply will continue, including food recalls, investigations and inspections of imports. But longer-term food safety efforts, including initiatives aimed at reducing foodborne illnesses, would be paused.
About 86% of the agency’s staff would remain on the job because their work is deemed essential or they are funded by non-federal sources, according to the administration’s shutdown plan. FDA scientists who review drugs, medical devices and tobacco products are mostly or entirely funded by company fees, not the federal government.
The State Department expects to furlough more than half of its remaining direct-hire personnel in the U.S., although embassies and consulates abroad will remain open and provide services to American citizens. No permanent layoffs are foreseen.
According to a 71-page plan posted to its website on Monday, the department said that only 10,344 of 26,995 domestically employed staffers whose work has been deemed essential will be exempted from the shutdown furloughs. Employees deemed to “excepted” from shutdown plan are those whose jobs are necessary to respond to emergencies and national security.
The Environmental Protection Agency says a contingency plan for a possible government shutdown would leave more than 10% of its staff in place to handle “significant agency activities” that are required by law or necessary to protect life and property.
Activities that would continue include protection of EPA land, buildings, equipment and ongoing research, as well as law enforcement and criminal investigations and emergency and disaster assistance, according to a contingency plan. Response work on certain Superfund clean-up sites also would continue, especially in cases where a failure to maintain operations would pose an imminent threat to human life, the memo says.
More than 1,700 employees would be required to go to work if a shutdown begins on Wednesday, the memo said. The agency had about 15,000 employees when Trump began his second term in January but has laid off hundreds of employees and offered voluntary retirement or deferred resignations to thousands more as part of a broader effort by Trump and billionaire Elon Musk to downsize the federal workforce.
Trump’s proposed budget for EPA says 12,856 employees are expected in the budget year that starts Wednesday.
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Associated Press writers Gabriela Aoun, Bill Barrow, Josh Funk, Matthew Lee, Lauran Neergaard, Rebecca Santana, Mike Stobbe, Matthew Daly and Ali Swenson contributed.
