SKIP ADVERTISEMENTTime Since Government ShutdownLiveUpdated Oct. 1, 2025, 7:31 a.m. ETA bitter deadlock between President Trump and Democrats in Congress over federal spending is expected to disrupt services and leave many workers furloughed, and possibly cause mass job losses.ImageSenator John Thune, the majority leader, with Senate Republican leadership as the shutdown loomed on Tuesday.Credit...Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times PinnedUpdated Oct. 1, 2025, 7:00 a.m. ETServices that millions of Americans rely on were upended Wednesday, and many government functions ground to a halt as a bitter impasse between President Trump and Democrats in Congress over spending shut down much of the federal government for the first time in nearly seven years.Critical services will continue to operate. The Postal Service will still deliver mail, and Social Security and Medicare will still send payments. But a sprawling mass of other federal functions has ceased.Cleanup at some Superfund sites has stalled. Assistance for veterans transitioning to civilian life is on hold. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has halted communications to the public about health-related information. Some data collection and economic analysis, like the jobs report set for release on Friday, have been paused. Most civil litigation out of the Justice Department has stopped. No new education grants will go out.Some federal employees will continue working but without pay. Others are furloughed.But unlike in previous shutdowns, Mr. Trump is threatening to make long-lasting changes to the government if Democrats do not concede to demands, including firing workers en masse and permanently cutting programs that Democrats support.It was unclear how long the shutdown might last, but both sides appeared dug in.Republicans had proposed extending funding at its current levels, but Senate Democrats demanded concessions on health care, including the extension of Obamacare subsidies and the reversal of cuts to Medicaid and other health programs. In last-ditch votes on Tuesday night in the Senate, where a supermajority of 60 votes is needed to overcome a filibuster, each party again rejected the other’s plans.Here’s what else to know:Wide-ranging impact: The longer the government is closed, the broader the effects will be. A longer shutdown may start to affect federally funded child care and federal grocery vouchers for low-income mothers and children. National parks, which largely plan to remain open, may see overflowing toilets, piles of trash and damage to fragile ecosystems. And Transportation Security Administration lines at airports have grown when previous shutdowns have dragged on, as unpaid employees start skipping work.Federal workers: This year’s shutdown differs from previous years’ because around 300,000 federal employees have left since the beginning of the year, most either fired or pressured to resign by the Trump administration. This has meant that in some cases, employees have already been working the jobs of two or three people to cover the vacancies.Trump places blame: The Trump administration has said that government work force needed to shrink. But on Tuesday, Mr. Trump said a new round of layoffs during the shutdown would be done to punish his political opponents. Speaking to reporters, Mr. Trump said his administration “may do a lot” of firings. “And that’s only because of the Democrats,” he said.Hatch Act: Some agencies issued blistering political statements on Tuesday about the shutdown that also pinned blame on Democrats. That is a departure from previous years and a potential violation of the Hatch Act, a longstanding law devised to ensure that the federal work force operates free of political influence or coercion.Last shutdown: The last government shutdown began in late 2018 during the first Trump administration. It lasted 35 days, the longest ever, forcing some government workers to get payday loans to cover routine expenses.Oct. 1, 2025, 7:19 a.m. ETU.S. stock markets are slipping, with about two hours to go until trading officially begins in New York. Futures for the S&P 500 are down about 0.5 percent.Typically, markets have been unfazed by government shutdowns. But the longer a shutdown runs, the deeper its potential effect on the economy, and President Trump’s threats to fire “a lot” of civil servants and make other “irreversible” cuts may have longer-lasting consequences.Oct. 1, 2025, 5:04 a.m. ETA Social Security Administration office in Manhattan. The agency’s field offices generally stay open during budget lapses.Credit...Dave Sanders for The New York TimesThe failure to reach a budget agreement will shut down much of the federal government on Wednesday, but that won’t stop the flow of several critical benefits, including Social Security retirement and disability payments, which are sent to more than 74 million people each month.Applying for benefits will also still be possible, either online, over the phone or at the agency’s field offices, which generally remain open in the event of a budgetary lapse.“We will continue activities critical to our direct-service operations and those needed to ensure accurate and timely payment of benefits,” according to a recent document from Tom Holland, Social Security’s chief financial officer. The letter described the agency’s contingency plan in the event of a federal shutdown.Both Social Security and Medicare are not subject to annual budget negotiations by Congress — their funding is mandatory because it has already been authorized by the Social Security Act. (Social Security’s dedicated revenue source is generated largely by payroll taxes, which are split by workers and their employers. Medicare is partly funded by the same revenue stream.)That means retirement, survivor and disability benefits will continue uninterrupted. Supplemental Security Income, a needs-based program for poor or disabled beneficiaries that is administered by the agency, works a bit differently: It is funded through appropriations made by Congress, but those payments are available through December, experts said.Still, some of the Social Security Administration’s more general services will be put on hold. They include benefit verification, benefit updates that are unrelated to the adjudication of benefits, corrections to an earnings record and the replacement of Medicare cards, according to the agency’s letter explaining its contingency plans.If the shutdown drags on, it could delay Social Security’s annual cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, which adjusts payments for price inflation. That measure is based on the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (called C.P.I.-W), a figure that was set to come out in mid-October. But it is calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which is expected to suspend operations.In a politically charged message sent to Social Security employees on Tuesday afternoon, the agency’s commissioner, Frank Bisignano, said that President Trump opposed a government shutdown but that Democrats were blocking efforts to keep it running.“The agency has contingency plans in place for executing an orderly shutdown of activities that would be affected by any lapse in appropriations forced by congressional Democrats,” he said in the message.Most of Social Security’s frontline employees will continue to report to work, though, like other essential federal workers, they will not be paid. The agency and its staff have already experienced a lot of tumult this year, which began when the Department of Government Efficiency slashed roughly 12 percent of its work force.“We have a well-documented morale crisis at Social Security, made worse over the past eight months as we have lost thousands more employees,” said a statement from Social Security Workers United, a committee of the American Federation of Government Employees union that represents 40,000 agency workers. “Delaying our paychecks will make the morale crisis even worse. We are being asked to keep delivering earned benefits while our own financial situations suffer.”See more on: Donald Trump, U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. SenateRelated ContentAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT