As Another Shutdown Looms, Government Workers Still Struggling

As Another Shutdown Looms, Government Workers Still Struggling Tamela Worthen can’t stand living like this anymore. The 55-year-old security guard at the National Museum of African-American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., missed several of her regular $600 weekly paychecks during the longest government shutdown in U.S. history — and, weeks later, still can’t afford her diabetes medication or her mortgage. She says she was rushed to the hospital more than a week ago because she could hardly breathe as a result of missing her medication. She’s worried about keeping her home while behind on mortgage payments. She says she’s also behind on car notes, car insurance, and electricity bills — and those are even harder to catch up on for federal contractors like Worthen, who didn’t receive back pay like their federally employed peers. Worthen feels so overwhelmed by the impacts of the shutdown and the potential for future funding lapses that she’s applying to new security jobs that wouldn’t be impacted by another shutdown.