Furloughed federal workers who are sidelined during a government shutdown could cost about $400 million for each day agencies are shuttered, a total they’re slated to receive as back pay, the Congressional Budget Office told lawmakers Tuesday.
About 750,000 federal employees could be furloughed during a shutdown, the congressional analysts estimated, citing agency-by-agency contingency plans. Federal workers are legally due back pay at the end of a shutdown — a tradition that was enacted into law at the end of the 34-day funding lapse that ran from December 2018 into January 2019.
The government would shut down on Wednesday, after ...