Would you still go to work if you knew you wouldn’t be paid anytime soon?

So if you or a family member tried to catch a flight in the US in the last two weeks, then you know there’ve been thousands of delayed and cancelled flights. 

The US Federal Government partially shut down on October 1, which meant that some 2 million federal workers weren’t getting paid, including air traffic controllers and military personnel. 

About 750,000 people deemed essential workers were still expected to report to work without pay. Many just called out sick.  But when even a few don’t show up, the whole system slows down. 

So what is a government shutdown? Well, similarly to how it works in Jamaica and the rest of the Caribbean, politicians from both sides have to agree on the Government’s budget before it is approved and money is distributed to various things.

In this case, the US Congress can’t agree on certain parts of the spending bill, and there is no short-term deal to keep money flowing. 

This time, the two political parties disagree about how to pay for government and health-care-related items. But with no budget in place, many offices had to close or send workers home without pay until a deal is made. 

Again, some 2 million people stopped getting paid, while almost a million are expected to work without pay. On top of that, there’s been some talk of not giving the furloughed workers the back pay. 

Typically once the shutdown is over, workers receive their full missed paychecks because, I mean, it’s not their fault the Government didn’t approve the budget.  But now they’re saying that might not happen. 

So how does this affect you and your money? Well, if the shutdown drags on, the US economy could slow a bit because government work pauses. That slows down the flow of key data that the Federal Reserve needs to guide its decisions. 

That makes it harder to know where interest rates should go, which can shake stock markets and impact other Central Bank decisions. 

Travel is another aspect.  For tourism-dependent countries like Jamaica, that’s a big one. People aren’t getting paid, so travel funds will likely be redirected, and even if they did have money to travel, there are no air traffic controllers.

And of course, there’s remittances; no pay means no money to send home.

The longest US Government shutdown was for 35 days in 2018 to 2019. Hopefully this one won’t last that long.

And that’s the bottom line.