Senate majority leader John Thune, in exchange for ending the shutdown, promised Democrats a December vote on extending the subsidies. The deal also provides for staff to return to work and be paid back wages.<\/p>\n
On November 10 senators reached a bipartisan agreement that ended a 43-day government stoppage. On November 12, after approval by the House of Representatives, US president Donald Trump signed<\/a> the bill. It funds government bodies until January 30, 2026 and allows federal agencies to resume work immediately.<\/p>\n The previous record came during Trump\u2019s first presidential term, when a 35-day pause in government operations ended in January 2019.<\/p>\n According to the New York Times<\/a>, since the start of the 2025 shutdown about 700,000 federal employees worked without pay and more than 600,000 stayed home until funding was restored.<\/p>\n The newspaper\u2019s infographic shows that the deepest furloughs fell across five areas, freezing 71% to 89% of staff: environmental protection, education, commerce, labour and housing.<\/p>\n In early October the Trump administration sent about 4,000 layoff notices to at least seven major federal agencies. A federal judge temporarily blocked them, pausing the proposed measures.<\/p>\n Before the shutdown each department identified the number of \u201cessential\u201d workers who would have to keep working if the government stopped.<\/p>\n Trump nonetheless reallocated billions of dollars to pay salaries for certain categories of federal employees. They included:<\/p>\n In earlier episodes these groups kept working through the shutdowns but received delayed pay after funding resumed.<\/p>\n National parks were closed, federal research halted and programme funding ran dry \u2014 such were the consequences of the protracted shutdown.<\/p>\n The Congressional Budget Office (CBO<\/span>) reported<\/a> that six weeks without consensus in government could cost the US about $14bn and cut fourth-quarter GDP by up to 2%.<\/p>\n CBO analysts estimated the economy would be hit by delays in federal spending on employee pay, goods and services, as well as food vouchers for low-income Americans.<\/p>\n Some 42m Americans rely<\/a> on the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. November payments remained in limbo until the shutdown ended.<\/p>\n Small business \u2014 a key slice of the economy \u2014 came under pressure. Many firms depend on government loans and federal agency contracts.<\/p>\n According to CBS News<\/a>, the shutdown prevented the Small Business Administration from disbursing about $170m a day in loans to hundreds of small employers. As of November 5, more than 8,300 businesses had missed out on $4.5bn.<\/p>\n The government hires millions of contract workers for administrative, IT and other tasks. That work was halted, depriving private companies of revenue.<\/p>\n Grace Zwemmer, a junior economist at Oxford Economics, noted that roughly $800m in federal contracts was at risk of collapsing each week. Unofficial estimates suggest about 5.2m federal contractors were affected.<\/p>\n \u201cA prolonged shutdown can significantly affect these individuals, hitting contractors\u2019 cash flows, potentially leading to furloughs, wage cuts or layoffs, with higher risks for small-business contractors,\u201d<\/em> she told CBS News.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Tourism felt the strain too. The Federal Aviation Administration cancelled thousands of flights owing to a shortage of controllers. As of November 5, the industry was short about $5bn.<\/p>\n About 13,000 air-traffic controllers and 50,000 Transportation Security Administration employees continued to work unpaid.<\/p>\n Over the past month almost all official data releases were suspended.<\/p>\n Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell likened<\/a> events to \u201cdriving in fog\u201d. Sharp, significant shifts in the economy can still be seen, he said, but beyond that \u201cit is hard to say anything with confidence\u201d. He called statistics from private contractors insufficiently reliable.<\/p>\n Non-farm payrolls are the data point that most move markets. ADP, a payroll-technology company, is a time-tested alternative to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).<\/p>\n As noted by The Economist<\/a>, at first glance its reports match the BLS, but the figures are deceptive. ADP and the BLS often revise their numbers. Their initial publications line up poorly: only 50% for three-month changes and 10% for monthly ones.<\/p>\n There were no employment releases for September and October at all, and the world\u2019s financial system may never know how the US labour market really moved in that period.<\/p>\n The importance of official statistics shows up in market reactions. Derek Lemoine of the University of Arizona found that, after official releases, expected market volatility declines \u2014 investors find them clarifying. The Economist\u2019s rough estimate suggests markets\u2019 sensitivity to official data has risen substantially in recent years.<\/p>\n Staff shortages in cybersecurity during the shutdown opened loopholes for attacks on the US government.<\/p>\n On November 6 CBO said it had recently suffered a hack and had taken steps to contain it. According to The Washington Post<\/a>, a \u201cpresumably foreign actor\u201d was behind the incident.<\/p>\n CBO spokeswoman Caitlin Emma told Wired<\/a> the agency \u201cimplemented additional monitoring tools and new security measures to better protect its systems\u201d and that it \u201cperiodically faces threats to its network and continuously monitors them\u201d.<\/p>\n Cybersecurity researcher Safi Modjidi said that \u201cmany federal digital systems continue to run in the cloud even during a shutdown, though offices are empty\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIf everything is configured correctly, the cloud provides a baseline level of security. But it is hard to stay calm, knowing that even in the best of times there are problems with cybersecurity,\u201d<\/em> the specialist noted.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n For a prolonged period federal technical specialists have faced layoffs, including at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA<\/span>), potentially weakening the coordination of the government\u2019s digital defence. During the shutdown CISA did not halt staff cuts.<\/p>\n Agency spokeswoman Marci McCarthy told Wired that \u201cCISA continues to carry out its mission\u201d, but did not answer specific questions about how the shutdown affected their work and the protection of other bodies\u2019 digital systems, and put the blame on Democrats.<\/p>\n The government\u2019s shift to cloud technology over the past decade, along with greater attention to cybersecurity, has provided some resilience to disruption. But tasks missed during the shutdown will create a serious recovery \u201cdebt\u201d that will be hard to clear once work resumes.<\/p>\n \u201cIt only makes things worse and adds work in the future, because later you still have to catch up,\u201d<\/em> a former NSA employee told Wired, requesting anonymity.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n He said remaining staff were handling only the most critical tasks.<\/p>\n The end of the shutdown marked the immediate resumption of the SEC<\/span> and the CFTC<\/span>. With official economic data returning, volatility in digital-asset markets is expected to rise.<\/p>\n Reviews of applications to launch spot altcoin-ETF<\/a> and the signing of cryptocurrency bills are likely to accelerate.<\/p>\n![\"image\"](\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/img-0722476ad2d4f383-9435772313448617.webp\")
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The state of play<\/h2>\n
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Flying blind<\/h2>\n
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A digital shutdown<\/h2>\n
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All quiet on this front<\/h2>\n
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