Idled workers tighten belts, do without
Tailor Gutierrez, a furloughed worker for the Internal Revenue Service, no longer buys meat. She eats ramen, or white rice and gravy instead. ❚ “We’re trying to find things that are cheap, but filling and sort of healthy,” the 19-year-old says. ❚ Across the country, 800,000 furloughed federal employees like Gutierrez and their families are running the numbers and tightening their budgets, knowing that most would not get a paycheck Friday.
Those paychecks are on hold for federal workers forced on unpaid leave or working without pay because of the partial government shutdown. For most, their last paycheck was Dec. 28. And with two in five Americans saying they’re unable to afford a $400 emergency, that empty pay period hurts.
Korinne Sharp, a disabled veteran who is on unpaid leave from Customs and Border Protection, is tapping the savings she had built up. “Dipping into that is really scary,” says the 40-yearold from Euless, Texas, who had hoped to use the financial cushion in case her chronic back injury flared up. “My back could get to the point I can’t work anymore.”