A demonstrator holds a poster on the day Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., speak to fired federal workers holding their weekly sit-in outside the U.S. Capitol a day before a partial government shutdown is set to take effect on Sept. 30, 2025. Photo by Annabelle Gordon/ Reuters

750,000 federal employees could be furloughed daily in shutdown, CBO estimates

Politics

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that roughly 750,000 federal employees could be furloughed each day of a shutdown, with the total daily cost of their compensation at roughly $400 million, according to an analysis of federal agencies' latest contingency plans and the Office of Personnel Management.

READ MORE: Are Democrats or Republicans to blame for the looming government shutdown? Here's what our poll found

The estimate released Tuesday comes in response to Sen. Joni Ernst's request for an analysis of the impact of what she calls a "Schumer Shutdown" which includes a series of questions about how much damage to the economy would be caused and the expected daily costs to the federal government in lost efficiencies.

"The effects of a shutdown depend on its duration and on an Administration's decisions about how to proceed," the CBO says in its Tuesday analysis, largely using work CBO published in 2019 after the five-week partial shutdown from December 22, 2018, until January 25, 2019.

WATCH LIVE: Senate gavels in as Congress speeds toward shutdown deadline

The government will shut down at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday if the Senate does not pass a House measure that would extend federal funding for seven weeks while lawmakers finish their work on annual spending bills.

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750,000 federal employees could be furloughed daily in shutdown, CBO estimates first appeared on the PBS News website.

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