The government shutdown started on October 1st, 2025 and officially became the longest lasting shutdown on November 5th, 2025. The last government shutdown started on December 22nd, 2018 and ended on January 25th, 2019, lasting 35 days.

The government “shuts down” when Congress can’t pass bills relating to funding federal programs and agencies. These include, and are not limited to, prisons, courthouses, national laboratories, law enforcement like the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Internal Revenue Services (IRS) agencies, airports, and federally owned/managed lands like National Parks.

In the 2018-2019 government shutdown, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) suspended routine inspections and more than 86,000 immigration court hearings were halted. Furthermore, National Park services stopped trash collection and road repairs and closed down entirely. Additionally, some flights were majorly delayed and ultimately cancelled.

Although many services, departments, and agencies were suspended due to the shut down, others were not interrupted. For example, emergency medical, air traffic control, law enforcement, border security, and disaster aid services will continue. Despite these services not immediately halting, they may face disruptions if the shut down continues.

There is no new funding available for these programs, but some states can decide to use carryover funds—remaining funds from the previous budget period—to allow them to run.

Since there’s no funding for most federal programs, that means that federal employees won’t receive pay until the programs receive funding.
Some federal employees are either furloughed, meaning they can’t go to work and won’t get paid, or are required to go to work and won’t receive pay. During the 2018-2019 shut down, around two million people were affected. About 380,000 were furloughed and 420,000 had to work without getting paid.

Since the last government shutdown, the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019 was passed to ensure federal employees get paid in full when the government reopens. Despite this, an article in The New York Times stated “the White House is attempting to lay off thousands of people and threatening to withhold back pay for furloughed workers, despite [the] 2019 law requiring that they be paid.”

This decision is influenced by the previous shut down’s statistics, showing that the United States lost 11 billion dollars from the shut down alone. This is mostly because federal workers had to decrease their spending due to the lost pay. Furthermore, the money lost didn’t rebound even after the federal workers received pay.

To end this economic and political disaster, the President can not suddenly declare that it ends. The Congress has to pass multiple bills that the President needs to sign to fund federal agencies and departments.

This happened on the night of November 12th, 2025, the 43rd day of the 2025 government shutdown. The night of that Wednesday, President Donald J. Trump signed the bill to reopen the government.

Now that the government reopens, millions of families are expected to get their wages back, food on the table, and the needs they previously received.