October 1st, 2025 in the hours just past midnight. This marks the exact day and time that the longest government shutdown in U.S. history began. The previous longest shutdown was also during the Trump administration Dec 2018–Jan 2019, lasting a total of 35 days, which now pales in comparison to the government shutdown Oct 1–Nov 12, lasting 43 days.
The government shutdown because of a Democrat–Republican budget disagreement. Democrats wanted tax breaks for 24 million Americans who use insurance from the Affordable Care Act, and are refusing to back a different government spending bill because of this. Democrats in the Senate want to make this tax break permanent, with assurances that Republicans won’t withhold funds. Republicans–including the president–are open to fixing expiring ACA tax breaks, but want to do this separately from the ongoing budget impasse.
The effects of this shutdown are widespread and have caused a great deal of panic amongst the people affected. These people include federal employees, who went without pay for the entirety of the shutdown and many of whom were laid off, and military and homeland security officers who were only paid once or twice.
People reliant on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits were also impacted. Originally, Trump planned to reduce benefits for people using SNAP during the government shutdown, but was ordered by a federal judge to fully pay for SNAP benefits by Nov. 7th. Said judge believed the Trump Administration was withholding benefits for political reasons, and because of this ordered the U.S. Department of Agriculture to fund the program so SNAP holders would still get all their benefits.
Another impacted group was U.S. air traffic control workers. Due to the shutdown, there was a loss in numbers of air traffic control workers because they weren’t being paid. Because of this, the Secretary of Transportation ordered a 10% flight cut in 40 major airports around the U.S. by Nov 14th. This greatly limited transportation for many people, and affected thousands of jobs
The shutdown is over now, having ended after the Republican–controlled House approved a new funding bill with the support of a few Democrats to get it passed through the Senate and up to Trump to sign.
The bill in question was 328 pages and extended money for most federal agencies until Jan 30th.; it funds SNAP benefits, the Department of Agriculture Congress, and veterans affairs until Sept. 2026; it promises back–pay for federal workers and reverses the shutdown–induced layoffs for thousands of workers. This bill does not, however, include an extension of ACA health care benefits like the Democrats wanted, and instead senators made a deal to hold another vote to deal with this issue at the end of December. This bill includes a great number of other provisions as well, most of which aren’t important for understanding the shutdown as a whole.
There are likely many other groups other than the ones listed who were impacted by the shutdown. Going along with this idea, there are also other ways in which the shutdown will continue to affect people even after it’s ended.
To better understand some of the more long–term effects of the shutdown, Mrs. Hack, the IB Global Politics teacher has shared her insight. She said that “one of the things people don’t necessarily think about is how business and operating programs can’t be made up. Food inspections and engineering plans for example. Time that is lost in the shutdown can’t be made up later. Food was grown, things were built, but the inspections didn’t take place. We won’t see the impacts until later if there is a food or drug quality issue.” Another effect post shutdown is “The direct impact to people who went unpaid, and people with debt. Even if they get backpay, it doesn’t cover interest. They will still have to pay interest on late payments for things that they were unable to pay before.” This insight is a great lens into just some of the issues people are still facing because of the shutdown. In addition, airports are taking a while to get back to full capacity, 0.1 to 0.2 percentage points were knocked off economic growth each week, meaning around $15bn was lost for every week the shutdown continued.
The effects of the shutdown were widespread and far–reaching, and they won’t end now that the government is back up and running. Citizens of the U.S. will continue to struggle in a variety of ways as the U.S. recovers from this 43 day stall in action.
