Government shutdown live updates as federal agencies reopen and employees return to work

Government shutdown live updates as federal agencies reopen and employees return to work

What to know about the end of the government shutdown:
The longest government shutdown in U.S. history came to an end Wednesday after the House approved the Senate-passed funding package, and President Trump signed the bill into law.
The legislation extends funding for most agencies until Jan. 30 and includes three bills that fund other parts of the government through September 2026. The Senate approved the legislation on Monday, when eight Democrats joined Republicans to end the standoff in the upper chamber.
After six weeks of the impasse that forced thousands of federal workers to go without paychecks, threatened access to food benefits to millions and caused air travel disruptions across the country, the government began to reopen Thursday morning as furloughed employees returned to work and agencies ramped up normal operations.
Back pay for some federal employees will begin going out as early as Sunday, according to a memo from the White House budget office. Others will have to wait until Wednesday, Nov. 19.
The resolution of the funding battle tees up a fresh fight over health care tax credits under the Affordable Care Act, which will expire at the end of the year. Millions of Americans are set to see their premiums spike without action from Congress, and Senate Democrats secured a vote on the issue by mid-December as part of the deal that ended the shutdown.
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With shutdown over, focus turns to upcoming Senate health care fight
With the shutdown finally in the rearview mirror, the focus in the Senate is turning to an upcoming fight over health care, with Democrats hoping to regroup after splintering in the final stages of the showdown.

Eight Senate Democrats broke ranks to reach a deal with Republicans to end the shutdown, dashing the party’s effort to win an extension of expiring Affordable Care Act tax credits in return for their vote to reopen the government. Now, Democrats face a quick timeline to shift their strategy.

As part of the deal, Democrats secured a promise to hold a vote next month on the tax credits, which help millions of Americans pay for health insurance premiums for plans purchased on state exchanges. And while Democrats have pledged to continue the fight, exactly what that looks like, and whether it could find enough support to pass, remains to be seen.

“What we have to make sure of now is that the health care fight lives outside of the appropriations process and doesn’t depend entirely on the government being shut down,” Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii told reporters earlier this week. “So now we have a fight in front of us.”

Tourists return to the Capitol as visitor center reopens
Visitors enter the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center as tours resume on the first day of the federal government’s reopening on Nov. 13, 2025.
Visitors enter the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center as tours resume on the first day of the federal government’s reopening on Nov. 13, 2025.

The Capitol Visitor Center reopened to the public this morning. Tour guides outfitted in crisp, red blazers dotted Emancipation Hall as individuals and large groups streamed in through the main entrance.

“We’re glad to be back,” one guide beamed.

Rusty Doggett, who was visiting from Raleigh, North Carolina, told CBS News he and a friend landed in Washington last night.

“We were coming up anyway and unfortunately the Capitol and the government was closed up until last night,” Doggett said. “We got here and it was a ghost town. Cab driver had been waiting three hours for me. He had two jobs the whole day. So it’s not just affected SNAP and TSA and air traffic controllers but the whole city of Washington, D.C., as well as America was punished, and I’m just glad that we’re opened back up.”

Another couple from the Netherlands told CBS News they were aware of the shutdown when they planned their trip to the United States.

“We found a lot closed, like the Smithsonian museum,” Melle Jorritsma said alongside his wife, Tiny.

Asked how they perceived the shutdown coming from another country, Jorritsma explained “the only thing I can say, I think there’s a lot going on in the world, and there are many people opposing each other on many subjects, and I would love to see that people would stand shoulder-to-shoulder again and make things work again in the world. That will be my wish.”

The Library of Congress and the U.S. Botanic Garden, which is on the Capitol grounds, also reopened to the public today.
Some TSA agents will get $10,000 bonuses for “exemplary service” during shutdown, Noem says
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced that TSA agents with “exemplary service” during the government shutdown will receive a $10,000 bonus check.

Noem said the bonus checks, on top of their back pay, is “for stepping up, taking on extra shifts, for showing up each and every day.” She announced the bonuses at a press conference in Houston flanked by agents, and said others across the country would be recognized.

“We will be continuing to not only recognize employees across the country, but we will be looking at every single TSA official who helped serve during this government shutdown, and do what we can to recognize that and help them financially with a bonus check to get them and their family back on their feet,” Noem said.

Economic hit from shutdown worse than 2018-19 lapse, firm says
The full effects of the longest shutdown in history are yet to be seen, but the hit to the economy will be significantly worse than it was during the 2018-2019 shutdown, according to a brief analysis by Anderson Economic Group LLC.

“We won’t have the government statistics for at least a month, but the private sector information we have now shows worse effects in 2025 than in the last episode that ended in January 2019,” said Patrick Anderson, the firm’s principal and CEO.

Beer and auto sales both took a tumble in October, the firm noted. Auto sales were down 4% in October from September, and beer sales were down 6%.

“When beer drops, you know something’s wrong,” Anderson said.

GOP Sen. Bill Hagerty won’t file lawsuit over seized phone records
Republican Sen. Bill Hagerty of Tennessee said he won’t pursue damages under a provision of the shutdown deal that lets senators sue the federal government if their data has been seized by law enforcement without notice.

The provision of the law, tucked into one of the appropriations bills in the funding package, allows senators to pursue damages of $500,000 if their records were unknowingly seized. The move was in response to revelations that investigators working on special counsel Jack Smith’s probe of President Trump’s actions around Jan. 6, 2021, had obtained phone records of eight Republican senators and one congressman in 2023. The new law applies retroactively to 2022, meaning those senators could reap a windfall if they bring successful lawsuits.

Hagerty, who was one of the senators whose call logs were obtained, wrote in a post on X that he will not be seeking legal damages under the new law.

“I am for accountability for Jack Smith and everyone complicit in this abuse of power. I do not want and I am not seeking damages for myself paid for with taxpayer dollars,” he wrote, adding that Smith “should be in jail.”

The Senate’s decision to include the lawsuit provision infuriated many House Republicans who said they were blindsided by the move and objected to taxpayer dollars going to individual senators. Speaker Mike Johnson called it “way out of line” and said the lower chamber would fast-track a bill to repeal the law. But the Senate would be under no obligation to bring it up.

GOP Rep. Greg Steube of Florida cited the lawsuit provision to explain his vote against the funding package on Wednesday.

“I could not in good conscience support a resolution that creates a self-indulgent legal provision for certain senators to enrich themselves by suing the Justice Department using taxpayer dollars,” he wrote on X. “There is no reason the House should have been forced to eat this garbage to end the Schumer Shutdown.”

Top Trump economic adviser says roughly 60,000 non-federal workers lost jobs due to shutdown
Speaking to reporters at the White House, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said the Council of Economic Advisers estimates about 60,000 non-federal workers lost their jobs due to the downstream effects of the shutdown.

He also said the administration estimates the shutdown cost the economy about $15 billion per week, or about $92 billion in total. He said gross domestic product in the fourth quarter will likely be 1.5 percentage points lower than it would have been without a shutdown.

OPM says “normal operating procedures are in effect” in D.C.
A notice from the Office of Personnel Management, which manages the federal workforce, says that normal operations for federal agencies in Washington are in effect.

“Federal agencies in the Washington, DC area are open. Employees are expected to begin the workday on time. Normal operating procedures are in effect,” the notice said
When will federal employees get back pay?
The more than 1.4 million federal employees who have gone without pay during the 43-day government shutdown could begin getting paychecks as soon as this Sunday, while others will have to wait until next Wednesday, Nov. 19.

The pay schedule was laid out in an agency-by-agency projection by the White House’s Office of Management and Budget. The memo was first reported by Semafor, and an OMB official confirmed its contents to CBS News.

Hundreds of thousands of essential employees continued working during the shutdown without pay, while nonessential employees were furloughed. Both groups are entitled to back pay for the paychecks they missed while the government was closed.

The administration has a goal of completing its list of backlogged payments by Nov. 19.

Here are the projections for when employees at various agencies will start to get back pay:

Health and Human Services, Energy Department, Veterans Affairs, Army and non-Army civilian employees: Paychecks will be processed on Sunday. This includes standard pay and overtime and hazard pay.
Departments of Education, State, Interior and Transportation, EPA, NASA, NSF, SSA and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission: Paychecks will be sent on Monday. This will only include base pay (not including bonuses, overtime or benefits), and corrections will be made in the next pay cycle.
GSA and OPM: Back pay processing date is Saturday, Nov. 15. This will only include base pay, and corrections will be made in the next pay cycle.
Small Business Administration and the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Homeland Security, HUD, Justice, Labor and Treasury: Back pay paychecks have a projected processing date of Nov. 19. These checks cover the entire period of the shutdown, including after Nov. 1.
Read more here.

Delta CEO says air travel should return to normal by the weekend
Delta CEO Ed Bastian said he expects air travel to return to normal faster than people might expect after the shutdown, saying he expects the system to return to normal by the weekend.

“By the weekend, we’re pretty much going to be full steam ahead,” Bastian told “CBS Mornings.

The Delta CEO reassured concerned fliers that “it’s incredibly safe to fly. It’s the safest form of transportation.” He said Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy “did the right,”pulling schedules down proactively when staffing levels became a concern during the shutdown. Bastian added, “we didn’t like it, yeah, but we felt like it was, it was the prudent thing to do.”

“Staff, the controllers, are back to work now. They’re going to get paid, I understand in the next day or so. And as a result, I think the system should return to normal by the weekend,” Bastian said. “I really do. And normal for us is an incredibly safe, incredibly reliable, great experience.”

As for Thanksgiving travel, Bastian said he has “no concerns.”

The 2025 U.S. government shutdown, by the numbers
The longest government shutdown in modern U.S. history came to a close Wednesday night when President Trump signed a bill to fund the government through Jan. 30, ending a 43-day-long impasse.

The shutdown impacted 42 million federal food aid recipients, 670,000 furloughed federal employees and 4,000 government workers who faced layoffs. It also threatened more than $7 billion in economic damage.

How the longest government shutdown in history came to an end
The longest government shutdown in history came to an end on Wednesday, after a Senate breakthrough ended weeks of gridlock that caused air travel disruptions, denied access to food benefits to millions and forced thousands of federal workers to go without paychecks.

The standoff stretches back to late September. House Republicans passed a short-term measure to keep the government open, facing an Oct. 1 deadline. But Democratic support was necessary to move the bill through the Senate. And with few opportunities to exert influence, Democrats set out to center health care issues in the funding fight — setting their sights on extending a set of expiring health insurance tax credits in exchange for their votes.

For most of the ensuing 43-day-long shutdown, Republicans and Democrats traded blame for the funding impasse, and each side remained largely united. But throughout it all, member-level bipartisan conversations seeking an off-ramp were bubbling under the surface.

Last weekend, the deal to end the shutdown finally came together.
Smithsonian staggers museum, zoo reopenings
The Smithsonian Institution announced that it would stagger reopenings after the shutdown ended, with the National Museum of American History, the National Air and Space Museum, and the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center set to reopen on Friday. The other museums, research centers, and the National Zoo are set to reopen on a rolling basis by Monday.

Smithsonian museums, research centers and the National Zoo closed on Oct. 12 because of the shutdown, using prior-year funding to keep the entities open for more than a week after funding lapsed
Government Shutdown More
With shutdown over, Senate focus turns to upcoming fight on health care
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, flanked by Sens. Patty Murray and Brian Schatz, speaks to reporters at the weekly Senate policy luncheon news conference on Nov. 4, 2025 on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.
Some TSA agents will get $10,000 bonuses for shutdown work, Noem says
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks at a press conference in Houston on Thursday, Nov. 13, 2025.
Most senators whose data was searched won’t seek damages under new law
Sen. Bill Hagerty of Tennessee speaks to reporters at the Capitol on Oct. 6, 2025, alongside Sens. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin.
When will federal employees get back pay now that the shutdown is over?
Hundreds of people wait in line as World Central Kitchen provides free meals to federal employees and their families during the government shutdown in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025.

Government could close again by end of January unless Republicans and Democrats reach funding deal