Politics

OPM’s previous shutdown guidance from September 2025 stated that furloughed employees will get paid once a lapse in appropriations ends, at the earliest date possible. The September guidance also referenced the 2019 Government Employee Fair Treatment Act (GEFTA), a law meant to ensure retroactive compensation for both excepted and furloughed federal employees during government shutdowns.

After President Donald Trump signed GEFTA into law in 2019 during his first term, both OPM and the Office of Management and Budget affirmed that excepted and furloughed employees would be given back pay as soon as possible, once any current or future shutdown ends.

But during last fall’s government shutdown, OMB officials backtracked on the guarantee of back pay for furloughed employees. Still, the spending deal that Congress passed to end the previous shutdown in November 2025 ensured that both furloughed and excepted federal employees would be retroactively compensated.