Early Saturday morning, Congress failed to meet its own deadline to fund much of the federal government, sparking a shutdown. What does that mean in specific, real terms?
A budget shutdown affects agencies which depend on discretionary funds appropriated by Congress each year. Agencies which are automatically funded ("mandatory" spending), do not have to shut down. That includes most of the Social Security Administration, Medicare and Medicaid.
We looked through the specific plans for a shutdown from more than a dozen key agencies. Here's what we found. (And here is a Google document with links to the full plans for all of these agencies.)